


Still Here

by futurelounging



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: American History, F/M, Family History, North Carolina, Time Travel, generations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2019-11-06 13:43:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17940806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futurelounging/pseuds/futurelounging
Summary: A story following The Frasers, Murrays, and MacKenzies of Fraser's Ridge and their descendants.A descendant of the MacKenzie family meets a grad student at the University of North Carolina and in their journey to discover their families' history, they learn of some extraordinary secrets. A member of the MacKenzie family from the 18th century finds herself very far from home. In the 18th century, Jem and his parents contemplate a great family loss.





	1. Chapter 1

**_University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, 2021_ **

 

“‘Elizabeth MacKenzie Myers’. I reserved the room online and it confirmed so I don’t see how this guy can also have the room at the same time. I asked him and he claims he booked it online just like I did.” Elizabeth twisted a curl of her dark brown hair around her finger, a nervous trait she’d picked up from her mother. Her father often joked that her mother’s hair was only curly because she’d curled it with her own fingers.

“Ah! I see the problem.” The student working at the library help desk turned his monitor so she could see it. “See the red x in the corner? That’s an error. So, it was already booked when you booked it, but you ignored the x.”

She stared back at him and bit her tongue. “Right. I will look for the tiny red x next time even though it would make more sense to not let me schedule a room at all if it’s already booked.” Her friend Miriam, who was perpetually mortified by confrontation, squeezed Elizabeth’s arm and began pulling her away before she fully unleashed her fury.

She’d seen that fury leave their freshman dorm RA speechless, seen it scatter a group of drunk coeds mindlessly harassing an exchange student, and in her all-time favorite moment, she’d seen Elizabeth’s fury rattle a rude barista enough that he comped their coffees and, upon subsequent visits, seemed to have developed a crush on Elizabeth which spoke to all sorts of interesting psychological machinations.

“Let’s just find a quiet corner. I already texted the others that we’ll reschedule,” Miriam whispered as they shuffled arm in arm out the towering doors, stopping at the top of the great stone steps. Elizabeth stopped, leaning against one of the imposing columns as she watched the students scurrying across the grass. The autumn air was damp, heavy with impending rain and she imagined her hair would be curling even tighter in the humidity.

“Let’s just grab a coffee and run through the notes together for now,” Miriam suggested.

Elizabeth opened her mouth to answer, but the words ceased in her throat as a man brushed by them. Recognizing him, she felt her annoyance pique again and yelled. “You!”

He stopped and turned to her, deep lines of confusion on his face. She noted immediately that he was quite tall. He stood a step down from her and she still found herself looking slightly up at his face, despite her own rather tall stature. He had bronzed skin stretched smoothly over strong cheekbones, a mess of hair that sprung in tight, frizzy curls from his head. His eyes were a swirling mix of colors - gold and green, then grey, then blue depending on the way the light fell upon them. Nothing about his appearance was one thing or the other, but a mix of everything all at once.

“Sorry!” he replied, not entirely sure why he was apologizing.

“You were -”

“- Oh, were you…”

They both stopped and smiled, suddenly shy.

“You were in the room I thought I’d reserved,” she stated. He nodded. “And now you’re leaving fifteen minutes into your scheduled hour?” He didn’t answer though his mouth opened as if he might. Her eyebrows raised in question and he snapped out of his daze.

“Right, I… Sorry, you can have the room now if you’d like. I realized I need some more information before I can lay everything out and I just don’t have a big enough table in my apartment for it all so that’s why I come here. I like the, uh, the light here, too. You know? It’s a really beautiful building, don’t you think?” The words tumbled out of his mouth in a rush.

Elizabeth, who was never at a loss for words, merely replied, “Yes.”

* * *

 

 

In the two seconds before he smiled and walked away, Luke Murray’s brain fired a barrage of potential questions at him, all of which dissipated in the nervous recesses of his mind. _If you don’t mind me asking, what are you studying? I’m headed to the cafe if you want to join me. Let me make it up to you and buy you both coffees. Hello, I’m Luke._

He swore he heard the other woman say “weird” as he walked away, the word catching on the wind. He let it swirl by him, but refused it entry in his mind. His body was strung tight with nervous energy, the inexplicable charge of meeting someone, however brief and accidental, that sometimes burrows under the skin, taking residence in one’s form.

His feet made a swift path to the bike racks alongside Hamilton Hall and his fingers fumbled with the lock until he forced a deep breath to steady himself. Stones kicked up from the wheels as he spun through pea gravel, crossing the green in a reckless disregard for the grounds, his legs churning with the fuel of adrenaline. And with the wind billowing his shirt, he skidded to a stop behind his apartment building, breath coming quick. After his key turned in the lock to his apartment, after he set his bike against the wall making sure to align it with the scuff marks he’d already made in the paint, he leaned against the laminate counter of his tiny kitchen and fell forward, bracing his hands against his thighs, squeezing a fistful of fabric and twisting.

“Fuck! You idiot!” No name, no notion of who she was, no idea what to do now that she’d taken up residence in his mind.

* * *

 

 

“Hey, mom.” Elizabeth set the phone on the table, putting her mother on speaker.

“You sound tired.”

“Hmph. How can you possibly tell that from me saying ‘hey’?”

“A mother’s intuition. Also, that chip I had embedded in your neck before you left for college sends me your bio stats.”

“You’re so weird.”

A low rumble came through the speaker and quickly erupted into a full-throated laugh.

“Do not laugh at her, Dad. It only encourages her.”

“Ah, you’re right. No worries. I’ll punish her later.”

His laugh echoed from the hall and she heard his retreating footsteps as he went back to the den. “Gross.”

“So, dearest daughter, is there any chance you can make it back here this weekend? It’s been awhile and we were thinking of having your uncles over for dinner. Be nice if they could see you before they leave for Arizona.”

Elizabeth smiled to herself, at how her mother had begun so carefully wording things now that she no longer lived at home. How there was always a gentle pleading behind her queries, a tentative request for reassurance that she maybe was still needed, somehow.

Elizabeth had not noticed it at first, perhaps because she was still suspended in the space between childhood and adulthood, uncertain of what to let go of and what to cling to. But now three years into college, she understood that she had begun to carve out her own path, that she carried her parents’ support and love in her pocket but did not cling to it as she had at first. She worked and studied and learned how to be poor and felt a surge of pride with each new step of independence. And she knew, despite her mother’s despair that time would ever march on, that she, too, felt pride in her daughter’s independence.

“I can’t. It’s too short notice and I’m working both days. And I’ve got papers to finish up. It’s just not a good weekend for it. I’m sorry. Tell them I love them.”

“Okay, it’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“Tell them to send me a postcard. I don’t have an Arizona one yet.”

“Oh yes! I’ll do that for sure. Don’t push yourself too hard, honey.”

Elizabeth laughed and affected a posh English accent. “Oh, I shan’t, Mother.” They chuckled quietly together and though the conversation felt it had come to a close, neither made a move to hang up. “Mom, you were about my age when you met Dad, weren’t you?”

The line was silent for a moment, until her mother answered in a near-whisper. “Exactly your age. I’d just turned 21.”

“Did you know right away that there was something? Not love obviously, but just… Something different?”

Her mother released a shuddering breath followed by strange sort of laugh, the kind that doesn’t necessarily signal humor. “My life changed quite dramatically the moment I met him. Yes. You could say that.” She sighed and laughed with genuine humor now. “You have romance on the brain?”

“God, no. Just… I don’t know. I should go. I love you. Go wake Dad up from sleeping in front of the tv and tell him I love him, too.”

“Will do. Love you.”

The click of the line disconnecting left the room in a silence that seemed to swallow the day’s remaining light, interrupted only by the creak of the hall floor.

“Mandy? Is everything all right?” John shuffled into the room and crouched before his wife, his long legs awkwardly squeezed between hers and the coffee table. He took her hands in his, encasing them in warmth and he pushed the dark hair away from her suddenly tear-filled eyes.

“She just asked about when we met.”

He smiled wide at that, but noted the sadness drawn on her face. “Hey.”

Mandy chewed her lip, biting back the emotions. “They’d be getting old now, my parents. And I just… Maybe they’re gone and I didn’t even know it happened. My grandparents, surely they’re gone, and I didn’t… The way I left everyone…” The tears overwhelmed her defenses and she let them, her shoulders shaking as she fell into her husband’s arms.

He ran his hands through her hair and down her back. He knew there were no words to help. What good would it do to remind her they’d all been dead for a very long time. Time for her was not the same as time was for him. He was married to a woman who was born 245 years ago.

 

* * *

 

 

**_Fraser’s Ridge, 1819_ **

 

A river of candle wax pooled at the wooden holder’s base, and Jem set his quill to the side of the paper, blowing gently on the ink. His wife swayed in the corner of the room, humming a nameless tune into the warm creases of her daughter’s neck as she fell limp upon her mother’s shoulder.

“I’m going to go up to check in on Mam and Da. I’ll be back within the hour.” Jem set a small rock on the edge of the paper to hold it while it dried and rose from the stool, shrugging into his jacket as the fall air had begun to cool. “My darlings.” He kissed his wife, Mary, on the cheek and gently kissed his daughter’s head, careful not to disturb her.

“Tell your mother I’ll be up in the morning to work on the quilt,” she whispered.

He nodded and strode out into the quiet twilight of The Ridge. Clusters of houses dotted the landscape, so many more than when they’d first returned forty years ago. The whispers of a proper town showed in the paths, well-maintained thanks to his mother’s initiative. Years ago she began building wheelbarrows for transport of small goods between homes without the use of animals, but found it difficult on the rough paths. As it always was with her, one project had led to another project. If given enough time and resources, he believed she could turn any ramshackle settlement into a bustling well-oiled metropolis.

He stepped onto the porch of his parents’ home, a dim glow casting shadows from their windows. Their cat, Ringo, rubbed against his leg and he bent over to scratch his back just as his mother opened the door, a warm smile drawn across her face.

“You’re just in time for some stewed berries if you’re up for it.”

Jem straightened and smiled. “Always.”

The room was warm, heavy with the scents of their evening meal, the smoky remains of roasted pork and carrots. Jem wandered through the room as Brianna got the bowls. He stopped at the pile of quilt patches in the corner. “Oh, Mary said she’d be up in the morning to work on the quilt.”

His mother hummed back a reply and set the bowls on the table, nodding for him to join her. Roger appeared, bleary-eyed, from the bedroom, shuffling into the room, rubbing his hand over the rough grey whiskers of his chin. “Here to steal my dessert, I see.”

“He lives. I thought you’d be out for the night, Da.” Jem smirked and shoved a spoonful of berries in his mouth.

Roger sat next to him, nudging him playfully and winking at Brianna, who shot him a cartoonish grin in return. “What brings you up here?”

Jem set down the spoon and wiped the edges of his lips with his thumb. “I was wondering if ye might watch after Mary and the bairn for a few weeks.”

Brianna’s brows drew together as she peered at her son. “Weeks? Where are you off to?”

Jem nodded and smiled. “Do either of you recall hearing of the university at Chapel Hill? In future times? Was it still there?”

Brianna and Roger looked intently at their son and then at each other, an excitement to their expressions, something they only wore when they spoke of the time before. It had been a long time since any of them had said anything about it. They all thought about it. How could they not when every thought of their missing daughter was of her in some unknown future.

Brianna began to nod, understanding dawning on her face. “Yes, I’m certain it’s there.”

“Jem, what are you planning?” Roger asked.

Jem bit his lip. “I have letters I’ve been writing to her, to Mandy, for years now. Just telling her of life here. Nothing special, just…”

His mother’s breath hitched, her eyes shimmering. He smiled tightly in return, his heart squeezing to think of what she must be feeling. “I met a fellow in New Bern who was taking a position teaching at the university and I think he’ll take the letters, find a secure place for them, somewhere they might keep amongst the archives. If she were to look for us…”

Roger laid his hand on his son’s arm, squeezing. “Like yer grandparents did for us.”

Brianna looked into his eyes, tension and worry rippling her skin. “But they _knew_ where we’d be, how to find us. How do you know she’ll find them, Jem? God, I want her to. You know I do, I just…” Brianna turned away, her hand covering her mouth, stilling the sobs crawling up her throat.

“It’s just a feeling. A hope maybe. But I know she’ll not find the letters if they rot in the ground here. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

Roger reached across the table and grasped his wife’s hand. “It is. We’ll write some for ye to take.”

Brianna nodded, swallowed the lump in her throat, and replied, “Yes, we will.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter we learn a bit more about Mandy's life in 1797, and Luke and Elizabeth have another chance encounter.

**_Fraser’s Ridge, 1797_ **

 

“Come here, Mandy. Grind this in the mortar for me. It pains my wrists.” Claire sat gingerly upon a wobbly stool and made room for her granddaughter to finish preparing the supper.

“Did you injure your wrists?” Mandy asked, the corded muscles of her forearm pressing tight against her skin.

“No, just old, I’m afraid. It’s all coming apart. Soon the wheels will completely fall off and I’ll be stuck in the mud,” Claire answered, tapping her fingers against her skirts. “Do you recall Hiram Murphy’s wagon that broken down in the road? Your father had to talk him down from a spitting rage for two hours before he agreed to let them move it. Quite unreasonable, he was.” Claire kneaded her hands in her lap, her eyes somewhere far off.

Mandy set down the pestle, brushing away the powdered seeds caught on the edge of the mortar. “Oh, I do recall that day. Mama was ranting half the night about it.” She caught her grandmother’s eye and smiled. “Do ye… Would ye tell me something of your time before? Before ye came back?”

Claire made no motion nor indication she’d heard Mandy. The room was silent save the crackling fire and a faint whistle of wind coming through a cracked window pane. She lifted her hand to her cheek and traced the line of her jaw, as if she was remembering the face she wore in the future.

“Before...” she whispered and smiled. “Sometimes I imagine bits of the future suddenly appearing here. Turning a knob to raise the heat, opening an umbrella in a downpour, flicking a switch to turn on the lights. Muscle memories sometimes happen out of nowhere and I reach for something that doesn’t exist yet. I always feel a bit silly.”

Mandy leaned back against the table, looking down at the toes of her scuffed shoes angling toward the other. “I remember my shoes. I don’t have strong memories of that time - I was so little - but I remember these red shoes I had. I thought they made me run extra fast. I would try to catch Jem, running through the yard at Lallybroch, and I believed I could catch him because of those shoes. But he was always out of reach.”

Claire giggled, a delighted smile lighting her eyes. “Oh, I wish I could have seen you there. I can imagine it.”

“I wish I had had more time then. I feel sometimes like part of me stayed there.” She felt the words leave her mouth and regretted them. Regretted all the implications of wishing for another time, of the dangers inherent in travel, of sharing such things. If her mother were to hear her say that… “Obviously, this is my time now. My home and family. It’s just something that crosses my mind sometimes.” She smiled and shrugged, a casual plea to move on.

Claire grasped Mandy’s hand in her own. “Your heart dictates your home. Mine never left this time.”

Her parents joined them for supper, her father and grandfather sharing improbable tales of near-disaster at the McGinleys’ hog butchering earlier in the day, while her mother spoke of her friend, Maggie’s, impending birth.

“Finley Morrison was there, Mandy. He asked after you,” her mother said, leaving unspoken that the question he’d asked is if Mandy might finally agree to marry him.

Amanda’s mind floated above the room, seeking air not saturated with talk of life and death. The whistle of the wind through the cracked glass grew louder.

Her mother motioned for Amanda to join her and Grannie Claire after the meal, as was expected, mending clothes while her father and grandfather plotted new fencing. Her grandmother’s hands were so frail, swollen joints hidden under mottled skin. Those hands had reached into the chest cavities of men in the twentieth century and cut limbs from men in the eighteenth. She might just experience a third century if her health held up.

On the cusp of her 21st birthday, Amanda MacKenzie quietly observed her mother and grandmother, who had experienced their birthdays in a very different time. She didn’t know a great deal of how things really would be, but she’d extracted enough stories from them both to know their worlds at the same age had been very different than the one she navigated now. To go to college, to become a doctor or an engineer, to choose her path and choose her spouse… If she had not contemplated such a choice, she could be content. There was but one path before her here, in this time.

 

 

**_Chapel Hill, 2021_ **

 

Luke rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, chasing the sleep away. His head ached from staring at the laptop screen for four straight hours and his stomach rumbled in protest. Clearly his body was having no more of this. He shut the laptop, and the room was once again bathed in the bluish glow of twilight. He considered ordering in but remembered his checking account was perilously low and he was still a few days away from his next paycheck. A quick check in the cupboards revealed two potatoes sprouting eyes, a can of tomatoes, a can of tuna, and not much else to accompany any of it.

Sighing, he grabbed his grocery bag, flung it over his shoulder and headed out with his bike on a quest for nourishment. The market was only a mile away, but his limbs lacked the energy to push his speed and he mentally berated himself for getting so lost in his work he’d forgotten to eat. He also realized, once he was already halfway there, that the sky had begun to fill with dark clouds, the air thick with impending rain, and he had brought neither a raincoat or a headlight for his bike. “God, you’re an idiot.”

The market was quiet, nearing the end of its hours. Luke headed straight for the bulk bins, scooping up rice and dried beans, which he realized would do no immediate good for his hunger. He grabbed some pasta for a quicker option, then wandered over to get some butter, a dozen eggs, and let his hand linger in his pocket, calculating how much he’d have left for produce. An onion, spinach, a bell pepper, maybe broccoli. A flicker of lights above him got his attention and he looked to the front of the store just as a massive bolt of lightning lit up the sky, a flash bulb capturing this scene. When his eyes readjusted, he found a cashier staring back at him, a peculiar look on her face.

That face. He knew that face. He had seen that face many times in the last three days, though only once in the flesh. Ever since he first saw her poking her head through the door to the room in the library, her brows drawn together in confusion, the image of her had positioned itself in his periphery. He’d only seen her that one day, first in the room, then later on the steps, but something about her face clung to him. He found himself looking for her among the students crossing his path. Allowed himself to indulge in imagining a fated reunion. He felt a certainty in his chest that he was meant to see her again. He never imagined it would be in the midst of a storm under the flickering fluorescents of an empty market.

“Hey, again.” She had her hair pulled back, but strands had fallen loose over the work day and they clung to the sides of her cheeks in the humid air. He thought she looked tired and adorable.

Luke felt the edges of his mouth curl into something resembling a smile. “Hey. It’s storming.” _Brilliant observation_.

Elizabeth turned back to the large front windows and watched for a moment. “Yeah, it’s really coming down now.”

“Should be a fun bike ride home.” Luke slowly walked to the front, stopping short of the register.

_What are the odds_ , she wondered. She had been replaying their moment on the steps in her mind just minutes before, and here he was, as if she’d conjured him out of thin air. Elizabeth glanced back at him and her face transformed, suddenly realizing she should be working. “Oh, I can check you out… Err, I mean, I can check out your stuff, um, here.” _Jesus, what is wrong with me?_ She tried not to think about what shade of red her face must be, nor why she was suddenly so nervous around him.

He set his items on the belt and fidgeted with the money in his hand. “I hope you and your friend got your studying done.”

She smirked and nodded. “It’s all good. The studying is never-ending, right?”

“Yeah, feels like it.” His stomach chose that moment to grumble loud enough for them both to hear and she bit back a laugh.

“You really need this food, huh?”

Luke opened his mouth to answer and his words were lost in a crack of thunder that shook the floor beneath their feet and unleashed a torrent of hail that pinged off the sidewalk. He stared open-mouthed, incredulous at the turn this evening was taking.

Elizabeth pulled the money from Luke’s hand and gathered the groceries in one bag, then signed out of the register.

“You can head home now, if you want, Elizabeth,” her manager said, pushing a broom up the aisle of canned goods “I’ll close up.”

“You sure?” She smiled and quickly untied her apron, tossing it under the register. When she looked back at Luke, she found him staring out the window, his face gaunt, dark circles under his eyes. He looked a mess, swaying weakly as another flash of lightning illuminated his face.

Now or never. “So, guy I keep running into, can you give me your word you’re not going to murder me or anything?”

“What?” Luke stared back at her, uncertain if he’d heard her correctly.

“You look like you’re about to keel over from hunger and exhaustion, and I doubt pelting your head with hail or getting struck by lightning riding home are things you’re looking forward to tonight. So, if you promise to be an absolute angel of a human, I would like to set aside all the ways I’ve been taught to fear men and perhaps foolishly ask you if you want to cook your dinner up in my apartment. I live upstairs.” She exhaled shakily, looking at anything but him.

“Oh. I am really hungry.” He continued staring at her, as if he was still processing her words. “Are you sure? If you’re uncomfortable, I don’t - “

“It’s fine. Just officially swear you have no ill intentions and… Wait, hold on.” She walked around the corner and came back with her manager. “Jeff, this is…” She paused, nodding at Luke to answer.

“Uh, Luke. My name is Luke Murray.”

She gave Luke an encouraging thumbs-up. “Okay, I am being an extremely good person and I’m inviting Luke up to cook his dinner in my apartment and I just want you to be a witness so you can describe him to the police, if necessary,” Elizabeth said, gesturing to Luke’s confused face.

Jeff nodded thoughtfully. “Doesn’t this just mean Luke here also needs to kill me, too? All you’ve done is condemn me, an innocent bystander.”

“I’m an innocent, too! Luke is the killer!” Elizabeth blurted out, raising her voice over the roar of the storm.

“I’m not going to kill either of you! Or anyone! I don’t harm people! I’m just really hungry.” His shoulders started to shake as he lost the fight against laughter and Elizabeth joined him, smacking him playfully on the arm.

“Okay, let’s go make dinner, Harmless Luke.”

Inside her apartment, Elizabeth kicked her shoes off on the mat and Luke followed suit. She took the bag from him and began filling a pot with water, then pushed a package of mushrooms toward him and gestured for him to begin chopping. He did so without question and smiled at her quiet confidence.

The room filled with rich scents and they settled into their seats, steaming plates before them. “This is amazing.” He closed his eyes as he took a bite. “Best meal I’ve ever had.”

“By any chance, is this the hungriest you’ve ever been?” she teased.

“Possibly.” He grinned back at her. “So, I wanted to ask you, what was it you and your friend were going to be studying that day?”

“Oh yes, that day.” She fired back a grin. “Climatology. Group project hell.”

“Sciency things. Interesting,” he stroked his chin in an exaggeration of deep thought.

“Geological science, if you must know.”

“Do you have a rock collection?” he asked, tilting his head innocently.

She narrowed her eyes at him and said nothing for a moment. “So, what if I do?”

He leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his frizzy mess of hair. “Rocks are the earth’s historical record. We study the same thing in some ways.”

“History? That doesn’t surprise me,” Elizabeth said, refilling her plate and nudging the pasta bowl toward Luke. “I know you want more. Go ahead.”

He grinned and shook his head. “You sound like my gran. Says I’m too skinny.”

“Maybe this is all an elaborate setup orchestrated by her to force-feed you. We’re all just pawns in her game.” Elizabeth winked at him, though if asked to describe it, he’d have to say it was closer to a blink. And when he replayed the moment in his mind the next day, he’d find his chest tingling with the desire to see her do it again.

They continued a meandering conversation in which they slowly plied bits and pieces from each other, greedily hoarding information to paint an image of the other in their mind. Elizabeth pushed her chair back and gathered the plates from the table. She dropped them in the sink and grabbed two small wrapped dark chocolates from a jar, tossing one to Luke.

He raised a brow in question, and she answered, “You should always have a little chocolate after dinner.” She plopped hers in her mouth, and they sat in silence for a moment, savoring it. “Whose history are you studying?”

“Yours. Mine. The folks whose ancestors made this place their home, and the ones who had no choice. My mother’s side, those of anyone descended from slaves, that’s a lot trickier to trace, but there are threads and stories out there, outside of all the official documents we base so much of our knowledge on. There are oral histories, artifacts, heirlooms, letters, all sorts of things still hiding out in the world that can tell us our stories.” His voice grew louder and more self-assured as he spoke, his fingers drumming giddily on the table. “I’m working on my masters. Almost finished. I’ve been working with the historical society, tracking the early families who settled in different parts of North Carolina starting in the 1700s, those who started pushing west from the coastal towns, charting the mountains. How the native populations were affected, escaped slaves. That sort of thing.”

It was the longest string of words he’d put together all evening and Elizabeth realized she quite enjoyed how his face lit up when he spoke about his studies.

“How do you know you’re studying _my_ people? What if I’m from New Jersey?”

Luke burst out laughing, quickly covering his mouth as he convulsed. “Your accent gives you away, I’m afraid.”

“I do not have an accent,” she protested.

“Oh, you do.”

“Hhmph. Well, you should hear my mother. She’s got this weird, almost Scottish sounding accent. She even says a few words in Gaelic sometimes. I don’t even know if she realizes it.”

Luke nodded. “Well, there are a great many Scots who settled around the state. I mean, my own history is obviously Scottish - Murray and all. But that is odd that she’d still have the accent. I don’t think there have been many recent immigrants. Do you know much about her family?”

Elizabeth didn’t answer, but wandered into the living room, drawing back a curtain to track the progress of the storm. The winds had died down, but the rain continued, flooding the streets below, a shimmering lake reflecting street lights and shop signs.

“My dad’s family is from around here, I think. Or not too far. I’ve got aunts and uncles and cousins from his side who are still here, but my mom, I’ve never really learned much about her family. Her parents are dead. They died when she was young, I think, but I’m not really sure. She had a brother, but I think he died around the same time. Honestly, it’s one of those things as a kid you sort of gloss over and then you get older and wonder, but I don’t want to dredge up bad memories for her either, you know?”

He appeared silently behind her, his presence warming the air between them. “I know. It’s tricky sometimes, the scars we have from our families might not always be visible, but everyone has some. I think that’s why I’m so fascinated by the history of this place. It was just a lot of really tough, resilient people trying to make a go of it. They did a lot of good things along the way, and a lot of horrible things, and here we are, two-hundred years later, wondering what to make of it.”

Luke leaned against the window next to her, his fingers tapping the peeling paint on the sill. “History is just stories. The way people tell their stories has a purpose, just like any other form of literature. So, it’s not just reading all the stories, but learning why they told them, what they wanted me to know and maybe more importantly, what they didn’t want me to know. Who are all the characters that got cut from the final edit? It’s an endless mystery to solve.”

She hummed in response and tried to tamper the pounding in her chest. It was dangerous to stand quietly in the dark with someone being honest.

He fidgeted next to her. “I have to pee. And then I should head home.” Luke turned toward the hall and left Elizabeth grinning into the dark.

She watched him bike away in the rain a few minutes later hoping the note she’d stuffed in his grocery bag wouldn’t get too wet.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We see what Amanda's life in the 18th century is like, her mindset prior to returning to the future.

**_Fraser’s Ridge, 1797_ **

 

“He’s very handsome. Even Mama thinks so.” Marjorie was five years younger than Mandy, and a great deal more invested in matchmaking for Mandy than Mandy was for herself. Perhaps it was inevitable for a 16-year-old girl, whose experience of the world was a small swath of North Carolina wilderness, that the primary focus of her interest would be marriage. There were few other prospects, even for such forward-thinking folk as the MacKenzies.

Roger and Brianna had decided, before Marjorie was born, that the issue of time travel would not be spoken about in their youngest child’s presence. They sat Mandy and Jem down and solemnly vowed to lock it away. To keep them all safe from the people who might not understand and wish them harm. They had made the decision to stay in the past, to raise their family there. Brianna and Roger did not speak of it to the children, but in the backs of their minds they harbored a fear that too much talk of it might also entice the children away, and they would not risk that.

Looking back on it now, Amanda couldn’t help but smile. At the time, it was a most serious business. Her father had drawn a knife across his finger, slicing the skin so blood welled at the surface. He then drew a cross on each of their palms with his blood and made them repeat in Gaelic, “By my life, I swear it.”

It worked. Neither she nor Jem spoke of the stones or what lay beyond them. Not in front of their parents, at least. Jem let slip memories to Mandy now and then as they grew older. She took a giddy delight in it, as if they alone held the keys to a magical realm.

In the dark, when Roger and Bree thought their children fast asleep, Mandy and Jem heard them whisper strange words from the future, concepts that held no grounding in reality in the 18th century. They spoke of television shows, which Mandy could scarcely conjure in her mind, though Jem’s eyes grew wide at the mention of them. They recalled foods and cars and showers, something Mandy only knew as a spot of rain. After Marjorie was born, the talking grew quieter and less frequent with each passing day and ceased almost entirely when their youngest was old enough to communicate.

Now that Mandy was grown, she spent more and more time with her Grannie Claire whose mobility was hampered by the ravages of aging. Her grandmother, who was naturally prone to disobedience, found herself uninhibited with her thoughts and words as the eldest member of the family, and when asked, would speak with Mandy about life in the future. Mandy’s own memory of her short time there was hazy and dreamlike, a series of images and disconnected feelings, with no vocabulary to assign to it. Her grandmother’s memories, however, were rich and detailed, lovingly recalled with acuity.

Perhaps that was where the seed was planted. And all it needed was some nurturing to grow. That came in the form of Finley Morrison. Her mother had first started taking her to the Morrisons’ when Mandy was six, baby Marjorie strapped to her mother’s back. They trekked the mile or so along the river to the Morrison lumber mill where Finley’s father had set up a woodworking shop, and her mother took advantage of his skills to get precise cuts for the variety of contraptions she was working on.

Finley was just a year older than Mandy, knobby-kneed with a wild crop of cowlicked black hair that hung over his eyes. She would follow him along the river, gathering rocks and twigs and other bits of forest caught in the river. He would collect scraps of wood from his father’s workshop and together they would build elaborate models of The Ridge. Finley had a small knife his father had given him for whittling and while his skills were crude at best, he managed to carve their likenesses with a minimal amount of his own blood soaking into the wood.

She found herself at the Morrisons often over the years until one day during her twentieth year, she suddenly became aware of a shift in the way the family looked at her and spoke to her. That somehow, without any real discussion, everyone but her seemed to see her not as Amanda MacKenzie, but as Finley’s Amanda. His parents spoke casually of Finley and Amanda’s future as if it were inevitably intertwined. Her own parents dropped his name into every conversation and set of plans as if there were no question he’d be involved. She was no longer a singular being.

How had this happened?

Finley been carving wooden figures for her for years, since before the idea of finding a spouse was on anyone’s mind. How could she have known when they had come to mean something more?

She had fallen into an easy camaraderie with him that followed them into adulthood, a shorthand that sprouted naturally from hours alongside each other. How could she have known when he asked her opinion of a bit of land that he had wanted to know if she’d like to live there with him? Her life had been planned out in the spaces between words, without her even knowing what had passed.

“Mandy, Finley’s up at the lookout and he’s asking for you to join him. If you’d like, of course.” Mrs. Morrison’s face was eager and flushed with pride and expectation. To be on the receiving end of such a look felt utterly suffocating and Mandy felt herself slipping through sand. Finley’s father nodded and smiled through his sawdust speckled mustache.

The crocuses had bloomed and cast a purple glow along the path up to the lookout, and she smiled as his silhouetted form came into view. He had on his nicest coat, the ripped seam at the shoulder freshly sewn up, his hair tied back with the shorter strands on top curling around his face. And for a moment, before she reached him, she thought she might say yes. She felt the word settle on her tongue, a droplet of water clinging to the end of a leaf.

“Mandy. You came.” There was no surprise in his voice, just gratitude, and his certainty nudged her heart to beat a trifle quicker, a nervous breath swelling her chest. “You look lovely. As you always do.”

He had rehearsed the words and their recital sounded hollow, though she knew he meant them. She could not doubt he felt love for her. She would not deny feeling something akin to that for him, but it was not the soaring lift of love freely given, but rather the nurturing familiarity of need. The truth of her life as a woman in these times was that she needed a man, whether or not she wanted one. And here, before her now, was a man who wanted her, who undoubtedly would cherish her and care for her and keep her.

He took her hands in his own nervous sweat-slicked palms. His knuckles were full of tiny scabs, splinters and scrapes from woodworking, his thumb wrapped with a strip of fabric from a fresh cut. “I’ll not ply you with fancy words. You know well enough I’ve not got any.”

She smiled at that and felt a flush move over her skin. She knew she must be bright red and he’d certainly see it, and be encouraged by the effect of his words.

“I love you. Have since we were children I suppose. I’d like you to be my wife, Mandy. Will you?”

Movement caught her eye in the sky behind him. A hawk circled and swooped down into the trees, swift and silent. In an instant her mind conjured a window, small, with thick glass, and a hum and vibration that ran through her small frame. An airplane. Her nose pressed against the glass as land gave way to water, the ground below her falling away. The earth releasing its hold on her.

She looked at him finally, at his sparkling eyes and teeth pressing against his lower lip as he awaited her answer. And she hated herself. “Finley, I… Would you allow me some time to consider your offer?”

He flinched, an unexpected flash of perceived rejection. “Time? Have I done something wrong? I can provide, I assure you, I -”

“No. No, you have no faults to explain, nor missteps to correct. This is… I just would like to answer you in my own time if you will allow it. It is an extraordinary offer and I don’t mean any offense, I hope you understand.” She smiled tightly, embarrassed and cringing as the words left her. Somewhere deeper below that, she hated herself for feeling she must tiptoe around the words, that his feelings in this moment somehow should take precedence over her own. She quelled the rising anger by embracing him and he gingerly wrapped his arms around her in return.

“I cannot say I understand it, but of course I’ll wait. I… I am sorry if I did not make my feelings to you clear before. I do care for you a great deal, Amanda.”

She could see him deflating, his mind reeling with questions of how he’d managed to lose her. And she felt herself drifting into the air, catching the wing of an airplane as he slowly became a dot on the landscape below. Her heart had taken flight on what _may_ be, not what _was_. And in the knowing, she’d lost the thread that held her in place.

“I should head home,” she murmured.

He followed her to the trail by the water, grasping her elbow to steady her over the roots that had risen through the ground. “Do you want -”

“No, I’m fine.” She brushed away his offer to accompany her home and in seeing his dejected face, quickly kissed his cheek. “Goodbye, Finley.” She swatted away the voice inside her telling her to apologize to him for not accepting his proposal, and quickly turned away, pulling her skirts up to keep them clear of the muddy path as she began her trek home.

The evening sun began to fall below the hills, leaving her in the cool blue light of the shadowed forest. New growth pushed through the mulch in a desperate bid for light. Most of the new trees would fail to find the sky. The world they were born into was not made with space for them, the old trees towering with limbs outstretched, greedily owning the forest canopy.

Mandy crested the hill just before her home came into sight and stopped at the unexpected vision of her younger sister running toward her, her face flushed and wet with tears. “Marjorie, what -”

Marjorie crushed Mandy to her, sobbing on her shoulder until her dress was soaked through, her sister’s hiccupping breaths slowly subsiding. “It’s Rosie. She was having the baby and he was born, pink and happy and all well, and then she started bleeding. And she didna stop, and I thought it had to be all her body had left, she was so pale.”

“Oh sweetie, oh no, oh no.” Mandy brushed the damp hair back from her sister’s temples and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, love.”

Marjorie had been working with Mrs. Andrews, who was acting as midwife now that Grannie Claire was no longer up for it. Marjorie had taken an interest in it, much to her mother’s surprise. She plied Grannie Claire with questions and then set upon Mrs. Andrews in such a way that there was no room for denying her request to apprentice.

This was only her sixth attending birth, but she had been excited for it because she had developed a friendship with Rosie in the last few years, helping her with the care of their first child and learning some weaving skills. Rosie, the eldest daughter of the Beardsleys, had married at seventeen and set to filling their home with children as if it were a contest. One successful birth and a miscarriage later, she had come to full term with this one. And now she was dead.

“I don’t understand why God took her.” Marjorie laced her fingers through Mandy’s, and they walked the last distance together.

“He didn’t take her. She’s gone because we don’t know how to stop the bleeding. We just don’t know yet.” Her words were harsh, infused with an anger she hadn’t realized was welling inside her. Her sister didn’t seem to notice Mandy’s words, too consumed by her own grief.

Mandy’s stomach grumbled as the scent of roasted potatoes wafted on a breeze to them. The houses began to glow in the early evening, kitchens fired and bustling with activity, women tossing vegetable scraps out the back doors as children began whimpering for their meals. Men darted into the animal shelters for evening milking and feeding, humming songs of all the families who had huddled together in this tiny pocket of earth. German, Scottish, Irish, English, in addition to the Murrays who brought Mohawk songs that her mother’s cousin Ian had learned when he lived with the tribe years ago. Two generations in and worlds were swirling into each other like waters flooding a plain.

“Go in to Mama, Marjorie. I’ll be in in just a minute.” Mandy squeezed her sister’s shoulders and continued along the side of the house. She sat on an overturned barrel propped against the outer wall, just under a window casting orange light over the moss clinging to the side of a tree. Mandy leaned her head back against the cabin wall and closed her eyes. She rested her palm on the center of her chest and imagined the scar. The white skin dissecting her, where they’d cut open her tiny body, prying her ribs apart, and held her heart in their hands. She was alive because of it. Because somewhere in the future she could be saved by some bold and miraculous doctors. Rosie might have been saved. At least three other women that she’d known here might have been saved.

What would she say to Finley if she married him and he saw the scar? Surely, he would see it once they wed. Her body heated at the thought and she snapped her eyes opened before more thoughts followed.

She lie in bed later that night and drifted to sleep at the sound of her sister emitting a gentle snore beside her. Sometime in the darkest hours she woke to Marjorie’s cries as she leaned over Mandy, her tears dropping from her cheeks onto Mandy’s.

“You can’t die! Don’t leave us!” Marjorie screamed through her tears.

Mandy tried to push herself up on her elbows, but she failed, her arms too weak, her body limp. She opened her mouth to answer, to say she wouldn’t die and felt only a choking dryness, her tongue swelling in her throat. And between her legs, she felt a river of blood leave her body, soaking the bed, coating her skin, and her sister’s gasping breaths were drowned out by the thundering drip of her blood upon the floor.

Slowly heaving her leaden arm below the blanket, she felt between her legs and her fingers touched the warm, slick blood as her eyes shot open. Her sister was beside her, curled away from her now. A dream.

It had felt too real, and her heart hammered in her chest. The fear of feeling herself slip away, frozen as her sister watched in horror, of becoming another ghost mother left to drift through the world, choked her. Her skin prickled and Mandy pushed herself up crawling to the end of the bed to wash and fasten a cloth between her legs.

The blood swirled in the basin’s water until it dissolved into pink, the wet imprint of her fingers soaking through her nightgown. She pressed her palm to her chest and spoke softly into the darkness.

“I don’t want to be a ghost.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke and Elizabeth grow closer as Luke receives some good news. In the past, Brianna prepares letters for Amanda.

**_Chapel Hill, 2021_ **

“You aren’t wearing _that_ , are you?” Elizabeth shot Luke a look that made it clear what answer she hoped to hear.

“No?” He looked down at his shirt and tried to figure out what he was missing. A stain? No. Ripped? No. “Uh, what exactly is wrong with this shirt?”

She threw her head against the back of the sofa and laughed while he pretended not to be staring at the mole at the base of her throat.

“This guy’s your boss?” she asked.

“Not exactly, but he holds quite a bit of sway with the boss people, and if he likes what I’m working on, we will likely get continued funding, and then when I’m finished with this project and come crawling to the historical society for a job, he’ll remember me,” Luke answered, smoothing his collar for the fifth time in as many minutes.

Elizabeth smiled at his nervous rambling. “So, your plan is to have him remember you as the guy with the wrinkled dollar bin shirt?” She muffled the last words behind her hand as her body shook with laughter.

Luke turned to her, mock fury steaming from his bulging eyes. “That. Is. It.” He attempted to tear the shirt from his body in a wild show of strength and was hampered by the iron will of button threads. Failing at that, he pulled it clumsily over his head, left wearing only his khakis and t-shirt. With his button-down crumpled in his fist, he stomped over to a wheezing, shaking Elizabeth and knelt on the floor between her legs. He proceeded to wrestle the shirt over her head, pulling her arms through awkwardly.

“There. For your insolence, you must wear the dollar bin shirt.” His chest was heaving with laughter now, a percolating giggle that erupted as she took in what he’d done and returned a look of shock and horror.

Elizabeth gathered herself and looked down at the shirt, hanging too large from her frame. The smell of him clung to it, to her. The heat from his hands on her thighs burned the imprint of his palms on her. He was so close, his breath shifting her curls hanging over her eyes. She could kiss him now, so easily. But if she did, he’d be flustered for his meeting.

“Looks better on me anyway,” she said, smirking.

“Everything looks better on you.” There was no teasing tone in his voice, and she swallowed the lump in her throat. His breath wafted over her cheek and he stood abruptly, walking quickly back to his bedroom to get a new shirt, leaving Elizabeth shivering at the loss of his heat replaced by the cool draft of autumn’s arrival.

 

 

**_Fraser’s Ridge, 1819_ **

The stack of letters had fallen across the desk, cascading in perfect formation until the final one came to a sudden halt against the ink pot. Brianna had folded them precisely, as if any imperfection would prevent their survival.

She had insisted Roger write to Mandy separately, for though they might overlap with their tales of a life missed, it would be from their own separate tellings that a more complete story might be told. Where she would remember the piercing wail of Jem’s daughter, shocking the attendees of the birth with its unexpected intensity, Roger would remember the pelting rain that kept the men huddled under the roof of the porch, pipe smoke hanging in a haze over them, while he pressed Jem to his chest as the sound of the cry cut through the blackened night. A new life, a new beginning, sprouting from the pain of loss and labor of love.

Brianna would remember the coarse rattle of the air pushing slowly in and out of her mother’s lungs. The awful absence of sound between breaths, a dark void of an expanding pulsewidth, a harbinger of life in a world without Claire. Dipping a cloth in the basin beside her bed to moisten her mother’s lips, her skin hanging limp and grey, the first organ her body would let go on its journey to the end. Her mother’s skin and hair had grown white, not like a husk drained of vitality, but a glowing defiance, as if her body had finally given up hope of containing her spirit. And in the end her spirit soundlessly left her, carried aloft by an autumn wind.

She had not seen her fathers in their moments of death. Frank had been placed in a casket, his body painted and primped to pretend death had not already consumed him, that he might be asleep if one squinted and hoped. She could not face his body, nor the truth of his loss then. It was a terror, pieced together with the fragile uncertainty of her age, trapped between adolescence and adulthood. It took years to feel it fully.

Jamie. His passing was as dramatic as he was, a mighty tree falling in a forest, catching on the branches of the young he’d sheltered. He worked his body to the bone, sinewy arms weather-beaten and bronzed. A mallet dropping from his hands, tumbling over the fence post and sinking into the wildflowers at his feet. His fingers catching splinters as they grasped for purchase, then curling into his palm as his body dropped to the earth, the sudden shock of it sending birds into flight from the branches above him.

Perhaps Roger would tell his daughter what it felt like to find his father-in-law upon the ground, lungs still. He would certainly tell her how he prayed over him, the belated last rites. _May the Lord protect you and lead you to eternal life._

Though perhaps he would not speak of the heaving breaths that racked his lungs as he wept over him, his soil-encrusted hands trembling upon Jamie’s chest. How he was frozen with grief, but then settled into a great peace of relief that this man whose life had been scarred by pain and heartache and loss, had been claimed by death with no great suffering. Had ended his years in the gentle bosom of family. That he had carried his home inside him so that no man could touch it, no campaign of violence could reach the roots of his soul.

Brianna could only tell her daughter of the cloud that swallowed the sun as Roger and two other men walked solemnly into the clearing before the house, Jamie’s body lifeless upon boards carried between them. How her heart lodged in her throat and she had only one thought - to find her mother. Brianna had known by the look on Roger’s face, the look of a man who had wrung his own heart dry.

She had spun around and found her mother’s bent frame swaying in the garden, her ashen face quivering. Brianna had swung the garden gate open and grasped her mother’s shoulders and together they careened to him. Their skirts billowed in a cloud of dust as they fell to their knees, the hum of voices around them swelling until they were completely surrounded by the swaying shadows of family and friends. Until Roger’s rasping voice rose from the murmurs and laments to lead a defiant and rousing keening over Jamie’s body, his hand slapping the beat against his thigh.

There were letters speaking only of death and sorrow. It felt best for her to confine them in their own space, leaving the joyous occasions unsullied, as if life ever recognized such division. She wanted her daughter to know that while she mourned her loss every day, she kept a flame of hope lit in her heart always, believing that what Amanda found in the future was the peace and opportunity she sought.

Brianna knew what might be there. She had seen the flickers of it in her youth. Women’s rights, civil rights, the powerful men who’d tipped the scales in their own favor for millennia beginning to feel the tsunami rising against their bulwarks. She hoped Amanda had remembered Joe Abernathy’s name, remembered that he could help her. She hoped she’d found people to trust. Brianna swallowed all these worries and kept them from the pages.

Brianna knew Roger had frequent dreams of Amanda. Would he tell his daughter of the ones where he spent his sleep chasing after her, hoping to find her in an ever-darkening forest, waking in a panic? Or would he speak only of the ones where she sang with him, harmonizing in the misty mornings as they plodded through dewy grass to fetch the day’s water? The poetic simplicity that clung to the wisps of unremarked-upon moments from which the days are composed. When he spoke of her to Brianna, it was always with the reassurance that she was so like her mother, and so like her grandmother, that she should would certainly stand steadily confident against anything the future threw at her. And Brianna would remind him that Amanda also was his daughter, and as such she would be compelled to give her heart entirely, without reservation, should she find a sufficient recipient. That when she found love it would be all-encompassing and reap both great suffering and great reward.

A sharp knock on the door jolted her from her thoughts. “Come in!” As expected, it was Jem. He quickly shut the door behind him as a gust of wind threatened to fill the house with leaves. The elms had begun to drop in earnest now and little swirling eddies of yellowed leaves moved about The Ridge, often chased by squealing children.

“Is Da around?” He leaned down kissing Bree’s cheek, his whiskers prickling against her skin.

“I believe he has been detained by theological discussion. Where, I cannot say. Your guess is as good as mine.” She pulled the letters into a proper stack and began tying them together with a bit of string.

Jem’s gaze fell upon the desk. “Are those Mandy’s letters for me to take?”

She made no move to give them to him but nodded. The idea of parting with them suddenly seemed terrible. As if the memories she’d committed to paper would become lost to her if he took them away. Roger’s letters sat neatly tied on the edge of the desk and Jem set them gently in his satchel.

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning. Germain will meet me at Murray’s Corner, and we’ll go from there. If they’re ready…” He held his hand out, waiting for her letters.

Before handing them over, she brought the bundle to her lips and kissed them, breathing into them, hoping they would one day be held by her daughter, that where her lips touched might meet the pads of her daughter’s fingers, a kiss received through time.

 

  ** _Chapel Hill, 2021_**

Dr. Campbell’s final words to Luke were cut off by the slam of the car door as Luke nodded his gratitude for the ride and nearly ran up the steps to his apartment. The entire ride home from the meeting at the Historical Society, he’d felt like his head was underwater, Dr. Campbell’s words a distant chatter.

Luke’s fingers wrapped around the note in his jacket pocket. It had become a talisman of sorts. He’d held it between his fingers so many times since he first found it while emptying out his grocery bag after returning from Elizabeth’s place that first night. He kept meaning to put it in the drawer of his bedside table, but something inside him couldn’t bear not to have it within reach.

She’d scribbled her number on it and a short note. _If you ever need a dinner companion in the middle of a thunderstorm, you know where to find me._

He sniffed his underarms and grimaced, nervous sweat having gotten the better of his shirt. Pulling off the offending garment and grabbing an old UNC t-shirt, he began to pull it over his head, but stopped. Tossing it aside, he walked to the living room and found his shirt that Elizabeth had left on the sofa, a silly grin growing on his face.

He yanked the bike into the hall and slammed the door shut behind him, his thumb swiftly punching a quick message into his phone as he maneuvered by his neighbor, an old man who liked to punch Luke’s shoulder as he passed saying, “I still got it!”

Luke: u home?

Liz: Yup. U? how did it go???

Luke: omw

Liz: guess i’ll make myself decent

He didn’t notice the gusts of wind swirling leaves across his path, nor the gang of mopeds riding past him, frat boys in their cargo shorts and backwards baseball caps. He didn’t notice the scrape on his arm he got from a loose bit on the chain link fence where he secured his bike, nor the car alarm polluting the otherwise quiet evening. He only noticed the hammering of his heart as he waited for her to buzz him in.

It had started as soon as they had left the meeting, the excitement of the new project and funding sparking excited chatter that carried them all the way back to Luke’s apartment. He had thought it was merely the thrill of the new, of having compelling work ahead of them that wouldn’t be living under a cloud of funding uncertainty. But when he exited Dr. Campbell’s car, the thundering in his heart did not slow, but increased. And Luke realized that the only thing he wanted to do in that moment was to find Elizabeth and tell her.

She stood on the other side of the threshold, head cocked with a barely contained smirk, hair falling in reckless ringlets over her cheek. He followed her inside, unaware of anything but how intoxicating she was.

“Well?” Her eyes were big, an excited grin on her face. “It’s got to be good, right?”

He could hold back no longer, and his face lit up, a smile creasing his cheeks, his eyes crinkling, and a bubble of a laugh burst from his chest. “Big new project for the Society for publishing and museum curation. Research funded for two yea - “He lost the final words in a crushing hug as Elizabeth threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck, a joyous laugh echoing in his ear.

Where a hug might normally end, this one lingered, as if they both suddenly realized they could do this. They could hold on to each other, breathing against each other’s neck, fingers tracing the lines of shoulders and ribs and hips. Their grips loosened, but they stayed in place, trapped in each other’s warmth.

“This damned shirt,” she laughed into his shoulder. “My nemesis.”

“It’s my lucky shirt,” he said, tracing the edge of her ear with his thumb.

“How is it lucky if you didn’t wear it when you got the project? Hm?” Elizabeth leaned her head back to look at him, her brows scrunched in confusion and not a little amusement.

“Because,” he said, meeting her gaze, “I’m wearing it now.” Luke leaned down until their noses were just touching, until the intoxication he’d imagined earlier was now completely overwhelming. She moved with him and their lips met, a soft, but searing kiss that broke with smiles, neither of them able to contain the joy of knowing it was only just beginning.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mandy has a heart-to-heart with her Grandfather, Luke begins work on his new project while Elizabeth visits with her mother.

_Fraser’s Ridge, 1797_

 

Jamie leaned forward, squinting in a dramatic display of skepticism, as Mandy strolled triumphantly towards the cork board nailed to the tree a short distance away.

“That’s ten for me, which, if I’m not mistaken, puts my total well above yers, Grandda.” Mandy smirked back at him over her shoulder.

“I wonder if it’s not on the line just a bit, lass,” Jamie answered, determined not to surrender just yet.

“The closest line to my dart,” she said, slowly annunciating the words for her own enjoyment, “Is the 20-point line. So, unless ye want my victory over ye to be truly humiliating, I suggest ye accept the ten points and be grateful.”

His demeanor cracked and he laughed. “I’m grateful yer sharp tongue hasna landed ye in a heap of trouble yet, though I canna imagine how ye’ve avoided it.”

She scooped the remaining darts into the bag and cinched it closed. “There’s still time.”

“Hmmph.” Jamie squeezed her against his chest for a moment, kissing the top of her head, before they began to walk back to the house together. “Speaking of time, how much longer will ye leave poor Finley twisting in the wind?”

She felt the familiar agitation rise within her at the mention of his name. “Poor Finley,” she spoke quietly. “Am I really causing him suffering by requesting time to consider how the rest of my life will play out? Is that such a hardship?”

“For a man who loves ye, who summoned the courage to ask for yer hand in marriage, aye, it may feel that way.”

She had come to appreciate her grandfather’s insights over the years, essential to understanding him and the world he came from. But at the moment, she had no tolerance for it.

“Why is everyone so concerned about him? The question is always ‘What about Finley?’. Does no one care what I’m thinking, why this might be something I don’t want to rush into?” Mandy veered away from him, needing some space, and he gave it, having learned from his wife and daughter.

“It’s no’ that we dinna care, mo chridhe. It’s only there’s clearly a bond between the two of ye, and affection. Ye’ve kent each other well for some time, so it seems to me ye already have the makings of a marriage, whether or no’ ye ken it yerself.

Her gut churned at his words. He was right, of course. She could hardly argue it. But how could she explain that marriage for her meant closing a door that could not be reopened, her imagination confined to domestic chores and mothering? And that the thought of it, of pulling down the shades and no longer wondering what the world held in store for her, felt like some kind of death.

They continued walking, cresting the hill just before her grandparents’ house. “What is it that ye want, Amanda?”

She stopped, chewing a bit of skin peeling on her lip, trying to assemble words to answer his question. “It’s not that I don’t want him. It’s…” She huffed a breath of exasperation and Jamie smiled sympathetically, waiting for her to continue. “I feel like there’s something always off to the side of my vision, something teasing me, but when I turn to it, it vanishes. It’s like… Like when a sliver of light shows through where curtains meet in the middle. And I just want to know what’s beyond them.” Her face flushed hot, embarrassed at trying to explain this to him.

Jamie nodded, silently watching Ian and Rachel’s youngest, barreling through the yard on chubby toddler legs splattered with mud - or so he hoped it to be - attempting to get a hug from one of Grannie Claire’s chickens. “Did ye ken yer great aunt Jenny has The Sight? From time to time over the years she’s seen people who werena there, visions of things yet to be. Yer own brother, the two of ye can sense each other, can ye no’?”

Mandy nodded, the edge of her lip curling into a half-smile.

“Did ye ken I’ve had dreams of things I’ve not seen with my own eyes? Yer mother as a child. Objects from the future I should not understand, but something in me does. So, I shouldna think it terribly far-fetched that ye sense something beyond this world, this time. But it doesna need to complicate yer life. Ye listen to yer heart and it’ll guide ye true.” Jamie held his arm out for her to take and she looped hers through his, grasping the worn leather of his coat.

“Then I shall listen to my heart,” she answered, smiling brightly.

“Good. I’ll be listenin’ to my heart as well. And currently it’s conferring wi’ my empty stomach and they’re both telling me it’s time for supper so let’s find yer mam and grannie.”

  


_Chapel Hill, 2021_

 

“Hold on.” Luke pulled the phone away from his ear and held his bus card against the machine until it beeped then plopped clumsily into a seat, tucking his backpack between his feet. “Okay, on the bus. What were you saying? Something about rotten oranges?”

“Mangos. Why are you talking so quietly? I can barely hear you.” Elizabeth tossed a pile of dirty clothes into the basket in the corner of her bedroom and headed for the door, swearing as her foot collided with a discarded shoe that went flying into the darkness under her bed.

“I don’t want to annoy people. I hate it when people talk loud on their phones in public. It’s impossible to think.” Luke waited for her answer and only heard rustling and muffled cursing. “Are you okay? Are you being abducted? I hope not because it’s twenty minutes between buses so it’ll take me a while to rescue you.”

The woman in the seat in front of him turned and stared at him, eyebrow arched high.

“It’s fine,” he mouthed to her, grimacing.

“Fucking Christ, that fucker was as far from the edge of the bed as you could get and I finally snagged it with my foot, but I’m completely covered in dust bunnies now. Gross.”  Elizabeth rolled up onto her knees and tried to dust herself off.

“You’re really cute when you’re angry, you know. All sweary.”

“Aw, thanks. Women love being told we’re cute when we’re angry,” she bit her lip to keep from laughing, knowing what his face must look like at that moment.

“Oh no! That’s not what I… I wouldn’t… I’m not dismissing your anger -” Luke scrambled to recover.

The woman sitting in front of him began shaking with laughter. “Oh lord, son, you keep talkin’.”

“It’s totally fine,” Elizabeth finally answered, releasing the hook. “You find me cute in all sorts of scenarios. And I can’t say I blame you. I am awfully cute.”

“Less cute when you’re arrogant,” he whispered, not wanting to invite further teasing from his fellow bus rider.

Elizabeth gasped dramatically and started laughing. “There you go. That’s more like it.”

“My stop is coming up. I’ll text you later, okay?” He stood, gripping the bar to steady himself as the bus pulled to the curb.

“Yup, sounds good. Good luck tonight. If I don’t answer your texts right away it’s just because my mom will be here, monopolizing my attention.” Elizabeth glanced at the clock and realized her mom would, in fact, be there any minute.

“Oh yes, no, don’t worry. Hang with your mom. I’ll talk to you later.”

“You will. Bye.”

Twenty minutes later Amanda buzzed from downstairs and in a couple minutes Elizabeth found herself in her mother’s warm embrace. It sent a wave of comfort and love through her to smell her mother’s hair, to feel the soft flesh of her arms pressed tightly around her.

“Baby, you look good. Last time I saw you, you looked so tired and I was getting worried, but you look better now,” Amanda said, unpacking a bag of groceries in her daughter’s kitchen.

“Wow mom, thanks.” Elizabeth’s sarcastic reply was met with an eye roll from her mother.

“I’m just wondering if it’s due to this new boyfriend of yours.” She said it casually, but with an unspoken coda that she expected her daughter to deliver all the details in reply.

Elizabeth stared back at her mother, wide-eyed and blushing.

“What?” Amanda laughed at her daughter’s expression. “Is he not your boyfriend? I just assumed since you find a way to say his name in every other sentence and he seems to be the only person you spend time with lately.”

“No, I… I just hadn’t thought of using that word because it’s just sort of happened. It’s not like we’ve gone on dates or something. It’s just… evolving.” Elizabeth tucked her hair behind her ear nervously and grabbed a pear from the produce her mother had laid out on the counter, running it under water and spending more time than necessary cleaning it to avoid looking at her mom’s face.

“Evolving. Leave it to my scientific girl to describe her romantic relationship that way.” Amanda squeezed Elizabeth’s shoulders and kissed her hair, smiling at how suddenly shy her confident, out-going daughter seemed. “So, early stages of evolution, then?”

Elizabeth cored the pear and handed half to her mother on a small plate. They settled at the little round table in the corner of the kitchen. “Yes, early. Like… a week. I mean, we’ve gotten to know each other longer than that, but just the other stuff is new. And I’m just really - I don’t know - kind of nervous. And I’ve never really been nervous about this sort of thing before.”

“Nervous because you’re unsure?” her mother asked.

“No. Kind of the opposite of unsure. More like this feels really different and big, I guess. Like other relationships I’ve had have felt like jumping in a lake, but this feels like I’m rushing down a river about to go over a waterfall.” Elizabeth took a big bite of her pear, juice dripping down her fingers and pooling on the plate.

“You like him a lot, yes?” Her mother’s eyes softened, her lips curling into a faint smile.

Elizabeth nodded. “More than a lot,” she answered quietly.

Amanda stared at a spot on the wall behind her daughter’s head, her eyes losing focus as they sat in silence. “My grandfather once told me I needed to just listen to my heart.” She swallowed the lump in her throat and ignored the roaring in her head as she conjured this memory. “So, I did that. I think you should, too.” Amanda set her daughter’s empty plate on hers and walked to the sink, pretending she couldn’t feel her daughter’s curious gaze.

Elizabeth stared at her mother, slightly dazed at what she’d just heard her say. She couldn’t recall a time she’d ever heard her talk about her grandparents. “What was his name? Your grandfather?”

Amanda felt as if she’d been hollowed out, her daughter’s question bouncing off her bones. She had taken a step into the stone circle by mentioning her grandfather. Could she risk taking another?

“James. His name was James Fraser. I called him Grandda.”

* * *

 

 

Luke gently pulled a ledger from the stack on the long wooden table and ran his finger over the date on the spine. His laptop screen cast a glow over his face as he read through the notes he’d taken thus far. This was an archaeological dig for him, a gentle prodding into history to see what he might turn up, sifting through the official stories to get to the broken treasures scattered beneath. He’d found himself looking for certain surnames along the way, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Murray and Campbell for his own lineage. Mackenzie and Myers for Elizabeth’s. He’d found bits and pieces that seemed promising, names to further dig into, but he’d need maiden names to really figure out what direction to look. He pulled his phone from his pocket and texted Elizabeth.

 

Luke: Hope ur having a good time with mom. I did some digging on your family’s ancestry and found some great leads on the Myers side, but I keep running into walls with the MacKenzie side. I can’t even find NC records of your grandparents. Any chance you know some other names to go on?

Liz: hey well funny you should ask. Mom just told me her grandfather’s name. James Fraser (frazer? I don’t know how it would be spelled). This would be my grandmother’s father.

Luke: perfect!! I will let u know what I find. Lunch tomorrow?

Liz: yes please

 

Luke forced himself to stop thinking about his own personal quest for information and return to his university work. He’d been given access to an archival collection of documents that had been in storage for many years - no one could seem to tell him how long they’d been there or what exactly they contained. He hoped they’d yield a few treasures he could add to the Historical Society project. This meant sitting in the dark for the foreseeable future, breathing in hundreds of years of dust, trying to decipher quilled handwriting. And he couldn’t be happier.

He pulled another ledger under the dim lamp and opened a new document on his laptop.

_Port of Wilmington 1770-1775_


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The MacKenzies plan a journey to visit family and in 2021 Mandy meets Luke. Jem sets out with Germain to travel to the university to deliver the letters.

**_Fraser’s Ridge, 1797_ **

 

“Do you think the nose is too sharp? Maybe this is an odd angle.” Bree held up the sketch for her daughter’s examination.

Mandy tilted her head in a perfect mirror to her mother’s expression. “No, that looks right. Similar to yours, isn’t it? Maybe a bit longer. But no, I think that’s good.”

“Hmm, okay, the nose stays then,” Bree said, blowing away a bit of dandelion fuzz that had hitched a ride on her shawl from her walk earlier in the day.

“How do ye know that’s how the bairn looks, though?” Mandy turned the paper toward her again, skeptical of her mother’s interpretation.

Bree laughed and waved her daughter away. “It’s a baby. They all look relatively the same. Like tiny old men.”

“You’re not serious,” Amanda laughed, shaking her head.

“Serious about what?” Roger asked as he entered the house, throwing his hat onto a hook by the door and running a hand through his salt and pepper hair, leaving it standing on end.

“Mama says all babies look the same which, as a former baby of hers, I find slightly disconcerting.” Mandy sat back in the chair, arms crossed.

Roger made an exaggerated face, as though he were mulling over his wife’s claim. “Weel, they all look a bit like auld men, do they no’?”

“That’s what I said!” Bree yelled.

“Ye’re both incorrigible,” Amanda said, trying to appear seriously annoyed, and failing.

Roger leaned down to kiss his wife. “She means we’re made for each other. It’s a compliment.”

Bree turned to Mandy, grinning. “Thank you, dear.”

“Mmph.” Mandy pushed herself up from the chair and made for the door.

“Wait!” Roger stood, grasping Mandy’s sleeve. “Before ye go off looking for yer sister, I have news.” His wife and daughter looked at him expectantly. “I want us to take a trip to Wilmington to see Jem’s family and then over to New Bern to see William and Amelia’s new little one. Claire’s not feeling up to the trip, so I want to take some gifts she’s made, and have a visit. It’s been a while. Good chance to stock up on supplies.”

Bree clapped her hands together and grinned, joy crinkling the edges of her eyes. “My boys!”

“Are we all going?” Mandy asked.

“Oh, aye. Unless ye dinna want to? I expect Marjorie will be thrilled to go,” Roger answered, sitting down to pull off his boots. “I’ve, uh, asked Finley along as well to drive an extra wagon. They’re looking for some new tools, I ken, and I thought we could use the extra space with all of us.” He glanced up at his daughter, warily. “Is that all right? I’ll tell him no if ye’d rather he not be with us.”

Amanda held her face still, betraying no emotion, keenly aware of her parents examining every sound, every move she made in relation to her suitor. She nodded. “No, of course it’s fine.” Straightening her skirts, she pulled a shawl over her shoulders and opened the door. “I’ll go find Marjorie and tell her the news.”

Marjorie had raced back to the house to begin gathering items to bring on the trip before Mandy had finished telling her, and the gentle buzz of well-wishers hummed outside the house before long. Her parents had gone up to see her grandparents and she found herself alone under the slanted roof, perched on the edge of her bed.

She knelt beside the bed and ran her hand along the wall behind it, fingertips drawing lines through dusty baseboards as she felt for the notch. _There._ She pressed gently down and pulled a piece out of the wall, not much larger than her hand. She retrieved a box from inside, wrapped in a stained cloth. It was filled with tiny objects, valuables she’d gathered over the years, too precious to keep on her person. Some merely precious to her heart.

A silver bracelet Jem had found buried in the sand down the coast, a shiny gold ribbon a former neighbor had given to her before they moved away, a hawk’s wing Finley had carved for her with her initials along the outside feathers. And tucked inside a silk drawstring pouch, was a pendant with a tiny amethyst surrounded by gold leaves. It terrified her to even look at it, far more valuable than anything else in her possession. It had been given to her after Aunt Jocasta’s passing, one of many valuables scattered amongst the family, now hidden deep in the walls of their homes.

Her movements were smooth, as if certain and planned, but her mind was elsewhere as she pushed the threaded needle through the seam of her dress where she’d tucked the pendant. Amanda’s thoughts twisted and whirled, like a leaf caught on the autumn breeze. Her tiny fingers twisting in the curls of her Raggedy Ann doll as she bounced on the hard bench of the wagon. Her eyes following floating embers, stark against the black forest sky, as her father whispered songs yet to be into her ears. Her grandmother’s eyes crinkling at the edges as she recalled walking into a hospital for the first time and hearing someone address her as ‘Doctor’. Playing hide and seek with Jem, their eyes closed, sensing each other and holding back giggles of joy at their magic.

The fabric of the world was unraveling before her, pooling at her feet, awaiting her command.

 

**_Chapel Hill, 2021_ **

 

“He’s nervous to meet you, so no teasing.” Elizabeth finished the braid in her mother’s hair and added an extra tie to hold the thick curls in place.

“Tease? I’m not your father. He’s the one you’d have to worry about. Be grateful he’s not here. Also, why should Luke be nervous?” Amanda asked, admiring her daughter’s work in the reflection of the living room window.

“Oh, it’s not you. Well, maybe a little. He’s just generally a bit nervous. Kind of shy and weird around new people.”  Her phone dinged with a reminder to leave now to make it to the lunch date on time. “We’d better go. He’ll be waiting. He’s chronically on time.”

“Oh dear, you two are doomed. How in the world does he deal with you then?” Amanda smirked, dodging a playful punch from her daughter.

“I am always on time. As long as you abide by the truth of ‘on time’ being a somewhat subjective designation.”

The cafe was an airy brick building on a corner in a quiet neighborhood, late-blooming flowers hanging from baskets around the entry. She spotted Luke nearly as quickly as her daughter did. His wide smile stopped her breath. She’d not consciously admitted it to herself, but she had been wondering if she’d see any of her Murray kin in him, and perhaps it was wishful on her part, but that smile, that bright, toothy smile was her mother’s cousin’s smile. She was certain of it. Like flood waters slowly seeping into a room, she felt them rise to her ankles, each step closer to him splashing bits of her past before her.

She glanced at her daughter’s grin and remembered what it was like to feel that electric charge, that heart-pounding joy from simply seeing someone. Luke stood, long limbs unfolding, and he drew Elizabeth close, a quick kiss.

“Luke, this is my mom, Amanda. Mom, Luke.”

Amanda shook his hand and smiled. They exchanged pleasantries, rhetorical musings on weather and school and sports that none of them really cared about. She felt a flash of nervousness, as if she were the one in the spotlight. For the first time, she looked at her daughter with him and felt herself outside the bubble. The third wheel.

“Earth to Mom.”

A gentle tug on her sleeve pulled her out of her thoughts. “God, sorry. Zoned out. What did you say?”

Luke cleared his throat. “I was just saying that I’ve been given access to some items that were recently discovered in storage and I’ll keep an eye out for your family names since you don’t know a lot about your ancestry here.” Luke smiled, and gleefully popped another French fry in his mouth.

She found herself frozen, unable to return his smile. A kernel of light glowed in her chest, a secret desire that he’d find them all, her family’s stories and artifacts and imprints carried through time. And another part of her was shivering with terror, all the pain of loss and the impossible truth of her existence in that time lurking around a corner.

“Oh, tell her about the pirate guy,” Elizabeth stole a fry from Luke’s plate and swirled it in the last bit of ketchup.

“Mmm, right,” Luke leaned forward on his elbows, settling in for a story. “This fellow in the eighteenth century, Stephen Bonnet, he was this smuggler who worked the North Carolina coast. Had his filthy hands in pretty much everything. I’m finding records of him in and out of courts, but he was slippery. I found an article about him escaping his own damn hanging! He’d disappear for a while and then a couple years later, I find him again in shipping documents. Like yeah, he’s a felon, but his name still ends up on official documents. Makes you wonder about the law back then.”

Luke’s words felt like shards of ice pelting Amanda’s skin, cold and sharp. Her hands shook between her knees and she pushed her chair back from the table, standing quickly. “I have to use the restroom.”

“Mom, you okay?” Elizabeth called after her.

She turned her head and nodded, not stopping as she beelined to the bathroom, holding her breath until the door shut behind her. Amanda paced, hugging her ribs, fingers grasping her shirt for something to hold onto. The waters had risen to her knees now. She could tell him all about Stephen Bonnet, but god, she didn’t want to.

 

**_Murray’s Corner, 1819_ **

 

“Rachel, ye’ll stop makin’ those cakes or I’ll never get out of here. Germain’ll be sneakin’ back here wi’ his horse to steal more every time I turn my back,” Jem chuckled at her amused glance and licked the crumbs from his fingertips. He’d made plans to meet Germain here at Ian and Rachel’s and then they’d go on together to the school at Chapel Hill.

She tied the cloth into a loose knot and handed it to Jem. “Thee will take these cakes and be grateful for them when thee is tired of rabbits or squirrels. They’re not for the bears, so keep them well hidden.”

“Oh, aye, I’ll fight a bear before I let ‘em have a cake, be sure of it.” He dropped the cloth-tied cakes gently in his satchel and turned back to Rachel. “Thank ye for yer kindness. As always.” He kissed her cheek, dusted with flour.

“Jem, wait a moment.” Rachel reached up to a tall shelf and pulled down a small box. She pulled from it a necklace, strung with beads and smooth, yellowed large animal teeth, and held it out to Jem. “Thee will be taking things to keep, to know who was here, yes?”

Jem nodded, curious.

“Ian would like thee to take this for keeping. He wore it for some time with the Mohawk.”

“He’s sure he wishes to part with it?” Jem turned it over in his hands, the beads and bone cool against his skin.

Rachel nodded and hummed. “It is missing one of the teeth. He buried it with his mother. But it will be good for this to not be lost to the earth, to be something seen when those who remember are no more. Take it.” Jem nodded his thanks and pressed the necklace into the dark recesses of his pack.

Germain and Ian entered the house in a rush of cool air and smoke, having procured meats from the drying shed. “Shall we make haste?” Germain asked through a piece of dried venison.

The morning sun flickered through the pines as they took to the trail. They rode a steady pace as Germain told stories of his own grandchildren running wild through his life, a cosmic retort to his own rambunctious ways in his youth.

In the evening, Jem breathed into his satchel where he could detect his wife’s scent, imagining her hands moving somehow delicately through the air as she tended to the home and the bairn. He tried to conjure the smell of his baby, of the soft downy neck and wet gums smacking, and his chest began to ache. He thought of his older sons tending warehouses in Wilmington, their shoulders straining with work and chests puffing out in a prideful dance before young ladies. He said a silent prayer for his first wife and her ghost that he would forever feel at his back. He wished his arms were large enough to pull his family to him wherever they were.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The MacKenzies (and Finley) journey to Wilmington, with an interesting moment along the way. Luke finds an old box of items, but forgoes examining them so he can see Elizabeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sexy times ahead - plan your reading accordingly!

**_North Carolina, 1797_ **

 

It had been misting since they’d left the previous night’s camp an hour before, and the wooden wagon seat began to soften with moisture. Not soft enough to make it comfortable, however. The spring rains had left ruts in the road that provided an endlessly jostling ride, exhausting her body from constantly correcting its balance. Mandy’s hip collided with Finley’s over and over and she was half-tempted to mention that this was the most they’d touched since they were children. Considering the circumstances, she held her tongue.

In truth, the circumstances were not merely that he, and most everyone who knew them, expected acceptance of his marriage proposal. Circumstances were also such that she was keenly aware of a persistent ache in her core. A building pressure that was exacerbated by the bouncing of the seat and nearness of him. She was also annoyingly aware of what might relieve the pressure, though she couldn’t imagine how it might be accomplished on the long journey to Wilmington.

Her mind continued to dance around its own truths. The amethyst pendant imprinted against her thigh, a constant reminder of the vague hope of freedom. If pressed, she couldn’t say just what her intentions were. The value of it lingered in her mind. That it might buy her a small amount of freedom she knew, but how to sell it, how much she’d get for it, what to do then - these questions felt impossible to answer. Behind the practicality of selling it, there was, of course, the surreal knowledge that it might get her through the stones. She hadn’t truly given shape to that idea. It had seemed even more impossible than knowing what to do with the pendant in her own time. But it was there, lingering in the shadows. Beyond all these thoughts, the pendant served as a symbol, a physical thing to grasp, to feel possibility in her hands.

Before they’d left, when rounds of goodbyes were filling the air, Mandy had followed her grandmother into the house, watching her wrap herbs in a pouch for them to take to William’s wife to help with breastfeeding. Recently, Claire had been sick, respiratory issues leaving her fragile after weeks in bed. She was recovering, but not enough to make the trip. And Grandda would not consider leaving her side, even to see his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

“Gran, do you think I should marry him?” Amanda asked quietly, uncertain why she’d even brought it up.

“Marry who, dear?”

Mandy gawked at Claire.

“Kidding,” Claire laughed. “Oh, your face.”

“Gran.” Mandy rolled her eyes at her Grandmother’s amusement.

Claire handed the herbs to Mandy and sat on the bench against the wall, her silver curls gone white against the morning light. “I don’t think there are right answers for these things. I loved both of my husbands. I married one for love, and one for protection. And neither marriage turned out how I’d imagined it would. I like - _liked_ them both quite a lot, though they are as different as can be.”

A wistful smile wrinkled her cheeks. Time had smoothed over the hills and valleys of her relationships. “The only thing I will say is that you should understand that love is a choice and you must make it over and over. Sometimes it will not feel like a choice at all because it is so easy. Other times you will feel like a traitor to yourself for choosing it, for forgiving them yet again. But it will never stop being a choice. And do not mistake choosing to marry someone with choosing to love them.”

Mandy sat down next to her grandmother, and stared blankly at the painting on the wall ahead of them. Her mother’s handiwork. Jem’s drooling smile. A cat curled up against his chubby legs.

“I’m sorry. That probably wasn’t helpful at all,” Claire said, nudging her granddaughter’s shoulder.

“No,” Mandy smiled, “It was.”

Finley held the reins in front of her, gesturing for her to take them. She did and he twisted around, reaching into a pack in the wagon. He retrieved a small cloth in which he had stored some early wild strawberries he’d found near last night’s camp. He held the tiny berries in his palm for her and took the reins back, holding a finger up to his lips and whispering, “These are just for us, no sharing.”

Her eyes grew wide and she grinned in return, twisting the green stem from one and popping it into her mouth. “If Marjorie catches us, she’ll be livid.”

The sun burned away the clouds and mist and gave way to humidity, the scent of green thick in the air. Hours passed to the sound of Marjorie chattering in the wagon ahead, her parents’ occasional laughter echoing off exposed rock faces. The pines gave way to elms and maples, dropping seeds to line the road. They made good time as the ground leveled out and pressed on until darkness threatened.

Finley refused her help setting up the tents and, as his spirits seemed bolstered, Amanda briefly worried she’d shown too much appreciation for the strawberries. She thought again of her grandmother’s words, of the choices that sometimes came easily, and wondered if that was the trap of marriage, enticing with the ease of young love.

Her legs ached from sitting, and after cleaning up the evening cooking, Amanda followed her sister as she wove through the underbrush, seeking spring flowers pressing through to the sun. Marjorie twisted them into necklaces and crowns, which her father happily donned by the fireside.

After they’d settled in for the night, the ache returned as she rolled to her side, sweat dampening the hair at her temples. Her sister snored lightly beside her, heavy with sleep. Pushing slowly up to her knees, Amanda quietly extricated herself from the bed roll and snuck out into the cooler air outside the tent, a light breeze cutting through her shift.

Her toes dug into the earth as she navigated the trail to the creek using only the dim glow of the moonlight. The water ran cold from a mountain spring, and goosebumps broke out on her skin as she splashed it over her face and despite the chill, she dipped her hands in again. Water in the dark of night held some magic, the current flowing over and filling the cracks of skin, a cousin to the blood pumping through blue veins.

Mandy pulled her shift over her head and the sweat that had gathered in creases disappeared with the wind. To wash herself without the benefit of sight felt somehow adventurous, her body more highly attuned to her touch, skin pebbling in anticipation. The sounds of night filled the air around her: water cascading over rocks, gurgling as it dipped and swirled, her breath gasping at the chill, humming at the rush of heat as her fingers found her warmth. Over this, she became aware of another breath cutting through the night, stilling her, this one hurried and uneven.

He was standing atop a rock a short distance downstream, silhouetted in moonlight, his long shirt brushing the tops of his thighs. When she looked up at him, Finley’s breath stopped, caught, and he quickly turned around, though made no move to leave.

“I’m sorry.” His voice shook with shame.

She wouldn’t allow it. She wouldn’t allow him to want her and curse himself for it. Mandy rose and walked slowly to him, stopping when her body brushed against his back. She let her lips graze the skin of his neck, exposed to the night air by his shirt hanging loosely on his shoulders. He shivered as her cold hands snuck under his arms to rest on his hips, one hand slowly sneaking to the front where it stilled. His heat called to her and she pressed her body against his back, and pulled him tightly against her. The ache screamed and she felt her fingers gathering the fabric of his shirt, as if she might tear it apart.

She quivered against him, unable to think what to do next when his hand came to rest on hers. She felt certain he was going to pull her away, turn to her in disgust, and leave her naked in the night. But he didn’t pull her away. He pressed her hand against him and moved them both lower until her hand stopped where his shirt extended from his body, held aloft by the evidence of his desire. She wrapped her hand around him through the shirt, marveling at the heat radiating from him, smiling at his groan.

In a flash he turned and she was no longer grasping him, but crushed to his chest, his hands pressing into her back. His mouth fell upon hers, both of them gasping as tongues clashed. She felt as though she was floating for a moment, her feet having left the earth. He had lifted her, settling them upon the grass away from the creek bank.

Too dizzy to think, she could only whimper, tasting the salty skin of his shoulder. She swallowed another sound as she felt him move against her. He was wet from pressing into her, slick and frantic, and she lost her voice, forgetting how to breathe altogether as she pressed her cheek to his sweat-slickened neck. His hand snaked between them, fumbling for a moment, before she felt him stretching her, the ache now bright and sharp, until she pulled her legs higher and he was the one quivering as he moved above her. He found her mouth again when his movements stopped and she held his bottom lip between her teeth, holding him inside her for just another moment.

When they sat up their bodies were marked with dirt and leaves and there was blood smeared along her thighs, her belly. He knelt before her, his face suddenly terrified, looking down at the blood covering him as well.

“Mandy, oh my god…”

“No, it’s just… It’s just my courses. It’s okay. I’m fine,” she reassured him, swallowing the shame that threatened to bring tears to her eyes. She’d practically attacked him, and to do so at such a time, felt reckless and wanton. “You should wash,” she needlessly instructed, crouching next to the creek to clean herself. He did the same and held his hand in the air before her, as if he wanted to touch her but was held back by an invisible barrier. Without a word, he scurried back to the camp.

When Mandy returned to her spot next to her sister, she collapsed bonelessly and snuggled against her. She wondered briefly if Finley was upset, but quickly pushed the worry aside. Instead, as the night settled over her, she rested her hand over the scar on her chest, and smiled dreamily at the feeling that had replaced the ache, the pulsing warmth of her own heart’s strong beating in time with the sounds of the night.

 

**_Chapel Hill, 2021_ **

 

Luke hadn’t noticed the sun dropping below the horizon until the room was suddenly cast into darkness as he closed his laptop. He gathered the bound documents and returned to the archives desk, dropping them heavily on the scarred wood. His friend, Derek, had his feet up on the desk, pretending to be asleep.

“If I film you asleep at your job, can I use it to blackmail you?” Luke asked while shoving Derek’s feet off the desk.

Derek sat up, feigning indignation. “You would want me to lose this cushy, extremely low-paying job? Where else will I be able to get paid pennies to sit bored for hours waiting to retrieve dusty books for you?”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll land on your feet. Or your ass.” Luke straightened the documents and pushed them toward Derek. “I’m done with these so they can go back to storage; I won’t need them again. Is there anything else from the uncatalogued collection they brought in?”

Derek stood and opened the partition so Luke could come through. “Let’s go have a look.”

The archives were a floor down in a windowless room lined with glass-covered shelves. Lights activated as they walked past the rows, casting only a dim light to keep from damaging the papers. A long table at the end held newly arrived documents and items that hadn’t fully been catalogued yet, or that required further research for identification. A few boxes with newspapers and broadsheets sat at the end, and one clasped box that was labeled only with “miscellaneous” on the tag.

Luke pulled the box to the edge of the table and looked at Derek. “What’s this?”

“Just a bunch of random crap. I dug through it a bit, but nothing terribly interesting caught my eye. Some old letters. Oh! There is like some kind of necklace with beads and animal teeth on it, though. That was kind of cool. I keep forgetting to contact the archaeology department about it, see if they want a look.”

Luke unclasped the lid and pushed it back, angling the box toward the overhead light to get an idea of the contents. The necklace Derek had mentioned was sitting loosely at the bottom and Luke ran his finger over a long tooth hanging in the middle. There were letters tied with string next to it, stacks of them, creased and yellowed, the edges worn from jostling around in containers for god knows how long. His curiosity almost got the better of him until he remembered he’d already kept Derek at work past his shift and security was likely waiting upstairs to close everything up. It would have to wait.

As the doors to the library clicked shut behind him, he waved a quick goodbye to Derek. He unlocked his bike and began the ride home. Ten different needs vied for his attention, including food and sleep, but foremost on his mind was Liz.

They’d both been ridiculously busy that week, only seeing each other twice for a few hours. The last time he saw her, two days ago, she’d kissed him so thoroughly, so intensely, he’d nearly forgotten how to walk. He’d replayed it in his mind a thousand times since then and imagined more than a few scenarios of the kiss being a prelude to more. That word - _more_ \- echoed through his body as he rode home. He’d eat, clean up, and find her.

Or, she would find him.

Luke swung his leg over the bike while it glided into the lot behind his building and stumbled to a halt at the sight before him. Elizabeth leaned casually against the doorway, her cool facade betrayed by her nervously biting her lip. A smile broke out across her face as he dropped his bike in the dirt and ran to her, pulling her tightly against him, kissing her the way she’d kissed him last.

“You’re here,” he breathed into her ear.

“So are you,” she teased.

He let his bike fall carelessly against the wall inside his apartment, creating a new scrape in the paint. They kicked off their shoes and dropped their bags and stumbled into each other, laughing, grasping.

“I’ve missed you,” he mumbled between kisses.

Elizabeth held his face between her hands, looking intently at him as if asking some question, the answer held in his eyes. “This is happening now, I guess, if you’re okay with that,” she said breathlessly.

Luke nodded, struck mute for a moment. “Mmhm. Yes. I want to… Yes.” She grabbed his hand and led him to his room before he could stumble over any more words.

The frantic kisses and touches that had gotten them to the room gave way to nervous laughter as fingers fumbled with buttons and hooks and a ridiculous conversation about whether or not he should remove his Fitbit. He opted to leave it on, for science. When finally they could trace uninterrupted lines down chests and limbs, a breath of relief filled their lungs.

Luke pulled away from kissing her neck for a moment, his hand stilled on her breast, thumb lazily circling her nipple. “I just…”

“What?” She eyed him apprehensively.

He looked down briefly at her chest and back to her face. “You have really beautiful breasts.”

Her body shook with laughter. “Thank you. I’m glad you like them.”

He returned her laugh and lowered his mouth to replace where his hand had been, flicking at her with his tongue, stopping her laughter. “Well, I just thought you should know.”

He told her of more parts he liked and she thanked him for each compliment, the frantic movements of before now replaced with something else she’d not experienced before in a relationship - the simple pleasure of being wanted and admired by someone who sees her, whose use of the word “beautiful” was not a perfunctory means to an end, but a simple, truthful description of what he beheld in her.

He knew her. And she knew him. To have effortless affection and respect and joy underlying this act elevated each touch, infused each kiss with a rare spark of pleasure.

She had almost said she loved him after she lowered herself upon him, but she couldn’t find a way to speak, her voice caught in the spasms and groans. She wished he could be inside her mind at that moment, to know how she felt. When she began to come back to herself, when his fingers pressed into her hips to move her faster, she wondered if it was something similar for him, if his face had mirrored hers.

Fallen back upon the sheets, the condom discarded, hands drawing circles in sweat, they faced each other. Elizabeth ran her hand over his hip.

“I was going to tell you I loved you while we were - you know - but I didn’t want you to think it was just because of that. So, then I thought I’d wait until we were done, but now I think it’s still too close to that. Saying it right after is a bit cliché too, right?” She felt a flush of embarrassment followed by a flash of happiness.

He didn’t try to hide his smile. “Hm. Maybe. Perhaps you should tell me when I’m cleaning the toilet. Something mundane. Or maybe when I’m reading the mail. Then I’ll know it’s real.”

She licked her lips, grinning. “Okay, that’s a good idea.”

He wrapped a finger in her hair. “When should I tell you? So you’ll know it’s real.”

She made a show of considering the options. “Tell me in the morning, when I wake up and still have sleep in my eyes and my breath is awful.”

Luke closed the distance between them, kissing her slowly, lingering against her lips. “Okay. I’ll tell you I love you in the morning.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mandy and her family arrive in Wilmington. She learns some new things about her family that drives her closer to making a decision about her future. Luke settles in to begin reading the letters Jem had stored at the university.

**_Wilmington, 1797_ **

 

Mandy could smell Wilmington before they were close enough to see it. The humid air was heavy with the acrid odors from the wharf, and rains that held mud and refuse stagnant in the streets. Despite the unpleasant aroma, she felt a flutter of excitement at seeing Jem again. She leaned into her father’s side as they slowed for pedestrians.

“Can ye sense him yet?” Roger whispered, curious if their special brand of magic was still working.

She closed her eyes and, after a moment, shook her head. “Not yet.” Marjorie’s excited voice rose up over the din of the town and she turned to see her younger sister grasping Finley’s arm as she pointed at the fabrics on display in a shop they were passing. A short distance later, down a quiet residential street, Amanda felt the thrum of Jem’s presence, a space in the air before them carved in his shape.

Jem’s wife, Sarah, must have seen their approach from the upper windows of the house. She stood on the front steps to greet them, with her youngest son propped on her hip and her oldest son’s tiny hand in hers. George was not yet three years old, but that did not stop him from confidently going about the world as if he owned it. He grinned and waved at his grandparents whose faces had gone pink with joy at the sight of him.

The hellos were boisterous and heartfelt. Jem appeared along the side of the house just as they pulled to a stop. He dropped the buckets of water he’d been carrying and ran to help his mother down from the wagon, lifting her off her feet in a crushing hug. They set to cleaning up first thing, washing the grime of travel from their bodies in a tin tub at the back of the kitchen.

Mandy ran through the house in her wet bare feet, leaving footprints on the dark wood floors as she made her way, wrapped in a blanket, to the room she’d share with her mother and Marjorie. Finley and Roger would sleep on makeshift beds in the sitting room for the few days they’d be staying.

As they all gathered around the fire after the evening meal, she became suddenly aware of Jem and Sarah speaking in hushed tones to each other as they looked her way. Finley sat next to her, close enough that his thigh pressed to hers, his arm behind her back. She knew how it must have looked and wondered what her parents might have said to Jem.

She excused herself, claiming the room had gotten stuffy and she needed fresh air. She’d gotten no more than ten steps down the quiet walk in front of the house when Finley appeared at her elbow.

“Your nephews are handsome little fellows, although I think George may be a bit of a rascal.” Finley laid his hand over hers, draped over his arm. The sun had fallen below the tallest rooftops as he guided her down another street; shops were closing up for the evening and lamps were being lit in the upper floor homes above them.

Mandy felt eyes on them. Old women nodding their approval, young men surreptitiously examining her, wondering where she’d come from. It seemed there was no escape from those hoping to steer her life. Finley’s arm, strangers’ approval, Jem’s knowing glance.

In the shadows of a narrow space between buildings, Finley pulled her into the darkness and kissed her, the self-assured kiss of a man who had known more than a kiss. She pulled away and found herself pushing against his chest until he relented, breathless and confused.

“What? Do you not -” he stammered.

“I don’t… I’m sorry, I don’t want to do this. I shouldn’t have…” She stepped away from him toward the street, giving herself space and light. Her hand rested over her mouth, her lips still feeling his. “I shouldn’t have done that, at the creek.”

“Mandy, no you can’t think… _I_ am the one who did that. I practically attacked you. God, I was a brute and I’m sorry for it. But… Well, I’m not sorry for it and I’ll pray God’s forgiveness for saying it. But I cannot tell you the joy I felt knowing you’ll have me.”

Her head moved of its own accord, shaking slowly, then faster, as if she could shake away this reality. She had let her body decide that night, but her heart now refused. She itched to get away from him if only to not witness the slow dawning of rejection, yet again, in his eyes.

His hand shot out, grasping at her sleeve as his eyes became watery, a desperate shaking at his fingertips. “Don’t do this.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Her voice rose, on the verge of tears. “I don’t want to hurt you.” She pulled her arm away and his hold tightened.

“Mandy.” His jaw clenched, anger bubbling up to his skin.

“Let me go!” She yelled it far louder than she’d expected to and pulled herself free, stumbling out into the street and willing her legs to take her far away. She didn’t look back to see if he followed. She’d know soon enough if he had.

After some time - it may have been two minutes or ten, she could not say - she turned to take in her surroundings. Finley was nowhere to be found and she sighed in relief. The adrenaline that had coursed through her, spurring her to flee, now left her drained and shaking, her emotions coming in waves.

The sun had disappeared behind the trees, nearly dropping below the horizon and the night had gone deep blue beyond the yellow glow of lamp light. The chatter and vibrancy of the day gave way to murmurings and fleeting shadows of night. Where she might have previously felt fear to be in unfamiliar surroundings like that, she now only felt a tingling thrill. There was something dangerous here and it wasn’t the people, but the unknown beyond. The water lapped against the docks, a constant motion that stretched for thousands of miles before her. She felt the pendant against her leg and smiled.

She walked until she began to see women standing in doorways, lingering in the shadows of buildings near the docks and it took her a moment to realize their trade. The lack of fear she felt previously gave way to a healthy instinct to extricate herself from this place and return to her brother’s home. She had a vague sense of the direction she’d come, and she began retracing her steps, increasing her speed at the sound of echoing footsteps in her wake. The world began to suffocate her again, and she wondered briefly if she’d feel this apprehension if Finley had been with her.

“Mandy!” She felt the familiar sense of him a few seconds before she heard his voice. He walked toward her quickly but didn’t run so as not to attract more attention. Jem turned her toward him, squeezing her arms. “Glad I found you before Da did.”

She tried to sort out why Jem had appeared so suddenly and why her father would be looking for her. “Da?”

“Finley came back wi’out ye, said the two of you fought, and I thought Da might take a swing at him right then and there. Mam talked him down a bit, but ye’ve managed to stir everyone up wi’ yer disappearing.” He cocked a brow at her, a brotherly admonishment.

“Why in the world would Da be mad at Finley? Am I not allowed a minute alone to think anymore?!” Her voice rose and Jem shushed her, causing further annoyance. He nodded to a bench under the awning of a merchant’s shop, long gone dark for the night, and she followed him to it, sitting in a huff of aggravation.

“Ye likely dinna ken what occurred when Ma and Da first arrived here. I only ken it because Germain told me. Ye must promise not to breathe a word of it, aye?” Jem kept his voice low, his eyes serious. She nodded her agreement.

He began the tale with the long preamble of the story of Stephen Bonnet, of their grandparents’ first encounter with him, and how he’d come into the family’s path once again by awful chance. It felt suddenly too dark when he began to recount what he knew of their mother’s encounter with the man, how their father had left to find gems, promising to return so they might have a chance of going home again, only for their nightmare to begin.

“What did he do to her?” she whispered.

Jem swallowed and shook his head, confirmation enough. Mandy felt bile rising in her throat, followed by a shaking fury at men, the whole lot of them, who were responsible for both protecting and terrorizing women. And she felt a queasy shame for not considering the danger of wandering off in this unfamiliar place. Now that she knew the feelings and memories it must have stirred up in her parents, she choked back the sobs building in her throat.

Jem leaned into her, resting his cheek against her head and humming against the curls coming loose from her braid. “It’s different...then. Mam went to work, off on her own. I remember women just out and about wi’ no care when I was going to school. Sometimes I wonder if those men, the ones who took me, if they have forgotten about us by now. If they gave up when we disappeared.”

The men he spoke of, they were ghosts to her, something from a story. But the rest of his words settled heavily in her gut. She closed her eyes and imagined her mother, sporting breeks and walking confidently through the world, turning her nose up at curious men, like some fantastical creature. That world, where women roamed freely, was grander and more pristine in her mind, a shimmering vision of possibility.

She felt him looking at her, felt the way his eyes saw past the flesh to some deeper truth. He knew her mind, sometimes better than she did.

“I ken ye’re stubborn as all the women of this family are.” He noted her look of indignation and quickly continued. “And strong, clever, determined. All good things in my book. But I can sense things are warring in yer mind right now and the world is affording ye no easy answers.”

Her head bobbed in confirmation to his words, as she wondered how much he really knew.

“Ye’ll do as ye must, Mandy, but take care to leave no wreckage; keep yer kind heart, always. The world is harsh, no matter where...or when ye are.” He sat back and stretched his legs before him.

She started at his final words. They let the silence stretch before them and then he led her back home, where she tearfully embraced her parents and offered apologies. Finley offered a silent grimace from a doorway and she dipped her head in apology.

Before they left Wilmington to continue on to see William in New Bern, she held Jem tightly, whispering in his ear. “Thank you, brother. I love you, always.”

“Always,” he whispered in return.

As the wagon pulled away, her eyes never left her brother’s, and as they neared the corner where they’d lose sight of him, she saw him nod to her, a gesture she would only come to understand later.

The ride to New Bern was warm, the spring sun growing stronger, with little respite from the humidity in the lowlands. But with it came wildflowers and new life springing across the landscape. Ever since leaving Jem, a change had come over her. The world came into sharp focus. The scent of flowers and grass and mud grew stronger, the colors of life vibrantly shimmering wherever she looked. All was begging for her attention. And she gave it, growing in contentment with each passing mile. Strong. Clever. Determined. Her thumb lazily circled the pendant hidden under the fabric of her dress.

Upon arrival in New Bern, her Uncle William put on a great show of hospitality for them and she reveled in it, taking tea on the veranda with his wife who cooed melodically into the soft fuzz of their newborn’s head. Anyone observing would imagine Amanda had found some peace with her life. The truth was that she felt her life a dream, the confines of which had disturbed her for some time, but she now moved inexorably toward a certain lucidity.

The women had moved to the kitchen to prepare the dough to bake in the morning. Mandy slipped out and hid in the sitting room.

“Don’t break that!” Her father’s voice startled her and she pulled her hand away from the model ship as if she’d been burned.

“You nearly caused me to break it by startling me, Da!” Mandy exclaimed, a smile breaking through.

Roger leaned against the wall watching his daughter examine the tiny ships William had begun collecting, looking up as William entered the room bearing drinks for them.

“Break what?” William asked.

“I’m not breaking anything! My father thinks he’s funny is all,” Mandy said, ignoring Roger’s snort of laughter.

She settled into a chair in the corner of the sitting room and listened to her father and uncle talk about business and the local politics, the sort of chatter that loses its shape as the night wears on. Their talk turned to shipping and the merchant trade that William had carved a living out of.

“I’ve handed off some of the day to day business to a fellow, Philip Barnes, who accompanies the cargo, oversees the deliveries. That’s reduced incidents quite a bit. He’s got some good connections up and down the coast. Odd man, though. Lives alone on Ocracoke. Says he can’t stand all the people in town and needs the peace and quiet at night. Can’t say I don’t envy him at times,” William laughed, downing the rest of his whisky in one gulp.

Amanda eyed her father, trying to read his thoughts at the mention of that place. It had been years since they’d spoken of it, their journey through the stones there. She held no memories of it herself but knew for him it would be something vivid and visceral, a memory that couldn’t fold itself away in the recesses of his mind. To take steps into a darkness that could mean losing your children, your wife - that sort of memory held its own unique space. Her father’s face was passive, but so still she could see he had halted his emotions in their tracks before they could reach the surface.

The drink had begun to bring out William’s philosophical side. “It’s funny,” he said. “I spent a good deal of my life on the move. I was raised thinking home would be this solid thing, my name and title having written my future, but it did not work that way at all. Instead, it was journey after journey, what felt like a never-ending series of revelations that unraveled the threads of my history. I felt like I was in a constant state of trying to accept new realities, and that it would never end. But now, I feel rooted. And I appreciate it for the gift it is. I feel as though I’ve earned something. And I do not think I’d feel that had I not left England.”

Mandy leaned back in the seat, enjoying the way men’s usually guarded emotions invaded their thoughts when their defenses were weakened. Her father was especially vulnerable to confessing all sorts of beautiful sentiments after a few nips of whisky. Her grandfather declared undying devotion at even a whiff of whisky in the air.

Roger nodded thoughtfully at William’s words and poured himself a finger more. “Ye are certainly right that our journeys make us. I never…” His eyes turned dark and unfocused, staring at the swirls of color woven into the rug below his feet. She knew what he was thinking about, what his life had been like before, in his time.

“I never imagined being here,” Roger said quietly. “And I’ll not gladly relieve some of the experiences I’ve had. But there’s a joy, a pride in the surviving of it all, aye? God carved a new man of me, and I can only think I must be made of terrible hard stone for the blunt force he had to use.” Both men erupted into laughter, Roger leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, a contented smile forming on his lips.

She watched them and felt her chest tighten. There was that feeling again, the indescribable push and pull of the world around her. They spoke of journeys they started as young men and she only knew the half of what they had endured. What had seemed obvious roads to them in their youth were not the paths they were meant to take. A certain clarity began to form in her mind. Her road was diverging from the obvious one. It called to her not with a promise of fortune or bliss, but of the pride of survival her father spoke of. For her to feel the ownership of her journey, she had to follow her heart in whatever direction it led.

The scar over her chest tingled as her trembling fingers clasped together and that word echoed in her mind.

Ocracoke.

 

**_University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, 2021_ **

 

The chair Luke had chosen in the tiny private room at the end of the hall had a wobbly leg and he briefly wondered if it were to break while he was using it, if he’d be blamed for its demise. And, if so, would he be required to replace it? Surely, they wouldn’t charge him for a new one, but then again, the university had a penchant for nickel-and-diming students so he wouldn’t put it past them either. _Focus_ , he reminded himself.

Derek wasn’t working today. It was another grad student he recognized from his historiography workshop, Denise. He’d asked her to retrieve the box of uncatalogued items and she’d returned with nothing, skeptical of his certainty that they had existed.

After pleading for a moment, he realized she would not crack and tried a different tack. Pity. _My advisor will be livid_ , he’d said. _My entire paper hinges on the contents of that box. Oh god, this is a nightmare,_ he’d groaned. He even went so far as to lay his head on the desk in utter despair. He heard, rather than saw, her roll her eyes and sigh as she went for another look. She’d looked on the shelves only, not the table at the back. He’d nearly fainted in relief when she appeared at the top of the stairs with the box in her hands.

Opening the box now, he felt a tremor of excitement. Few ever had the opportunity to look at items that had been hidden away for so long. It was as close to treasure as he would ever know. He carefully pulled one letter from the pile and opened it gently, careful not to press the creases where it had been folded. He tilted the lamp over the letter and began reading.

_July 9, 1819_

_My dear sister Mandy,_

Luke started at the unexpected name matching that of his girlfriend’s mother.

_I hope this letter finds you and that you are well and do not faint from the pleasure of reading your brother’s words after so long._

Luke smiled, already drawing an image in his mind of the author.

_I miss you most when I visit my sons in Wilmington, because you knew them. I can see you tickling George until he fell onto the ground squirming. I can see you holding Francis on the front steps, pointing out the birds swooping down from the roof across the street. They grew up with stories of you, their aunt, the great adventurer. I think to this day they believe you are some mythical creature. I don’t regret leaving that impression._

_It was a long recovery for us all after you left, much more for Mam and Da, as you can imagine. I know it was no small thing to you and please know that they did come to understand your decision. I daresay they found some pride in it. That was Grannie Claire’s doing, I suspect. She knew better than anyone what it was to take that step and defended you with all her heart. I recall Da saying once, “Wi’ all the Fraser and MacKenzie in Mandy, it’s no real wonder,” to which Grandda replied, “Aye, the devil’s own courage.”_

Luke set the letter down with trembling fingers. His eyes went to the date again in a vain attempt to imagine it was some other year, that he’d misread it. But that wouldn’t excuse the obviously very old paper, the inkblots peppering it. A sheen of sweat broke out on his brow and he pushed away from the table, the chair leg cracking as he abruptly stood, running his fingers through his hair until it sprung wildly in all directions.

Mandy. MacKenzie. Fraser.

“What the hell is this?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jem arrives in Chapel Hill with Germain to deliver the letters, Luke begins reading the letters and can't escape the impossible conclusion he reaches, and Mandy makes her way to Ocracoke.

**_University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, 2021_ **

 

The worn wooden table was completely covered in yellowed paper, fragile edges ripped and curled. Luke had spent hours reading them and arranging them, trying to piece together a puzzle that left him shaking his head in confusion.

His finger hovered over the keyboard on his phone. How could he possibly be thinking this? But he’d tried every logical angle he could think of to no avail. The only thing that added up was impossible. There was no more he could do with what he had, however. He needed answers from Liz’s mother.

> Luke: Do you know of a Jem or Marjorie MacKenzie in your mom’s family?
> 
> Liz: Well, that’s her brother’s name (he doesn’t have a band named The Holograms as far as I know) and Marjorie is her little sister, but she hasn’t spoken to her family since I was born. Where are you getting this stuff? Slumming it on Ancestry.com?
> 
> Luke: Did she have a grandmother named Claire?
> 
> Liz: No idea. I’d have to ask. Aren’t you supposed to be working on your project?
> 
> Luke: I am. Can you ask your mom about Claire and let me know?
> 
> Liz: Sure.

He moved to set his phone down, but another message quickly followed.

> Liz: Are you okay?

He wanted desperately to tell her no, he was not okay. But could think of no way to explain what was going on in his mind. He opted for the forgivable lie.

> Luke: Yeah, I’m fine. Let me know as soon as you hear from your mom.

He turned to his laptop sitting atop a shelf along the wall. On the screen were some lines branching out from one another in the center upon which he’d typed the names from the letters. James (deceased), Claire (deceased), Roger, Brianna, Jem, Sarah (deceased), Mary, Ellen, George, Francis, Mandy, Marjorie, Joseph, Dorothy, Ian, Rachel, Beardsleys (unnamed). All the adults had lines connecting them to spouses and children, save one. Mandy.

How could a woman living in 2021 share the same family member names as a woman from hundreds of years ago? How was that a conceivable coincidence? And if it wasn’t merely coincidence, how was the Mandy of the letters, the Mandy he knew?

“It’s not. It can’t be.” He felt especially crazy talking to himself but needed to hear the words out loud.

His phone buzzed against his thigh and he pulled it out of his pocket, confusedly staring at the fact that Elizabeth was calling him instead of just texting. A pebble of worry settled in his gut.

“Hey.”

“Hey, so, sorry if I’m interrupting you, but I asked my mom about those names,” she said.

“Yeah, did she know?”

“Luke, she freaked. Well, not right away. She was just weirdly quiet at first. And then she started crying and saying, _‘What did you find? Did Luke find them?’_ and I was just like _‘Uhhh I don’t know, maybe’_. So, then my Dad took the phone from her because honestly, she couldn’t even talk, and I felt like shit for bringing it up. I mean, I didn’t know it was going to make her freak out. So, he asked me to tell him exactly what you’d asked me, so I did and he was just like, _‘Okay, we’re coming.’_ ”

“They’re coming? Jesus, okay. Can you text them and tell them to come to Wilson Library? I have it all here.”

“Yeah, but Luke, why do I feel like I’m the only one in the dark here? What is going on?”

Luke swallowed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “You have to see it. I want to show you before they get here, so you can tell me if I’m crazy.”

“God. Okay. This is somehow both scary and exciting. I’ll see you in ten.”

He hung up and stared at the screen blankly for a moment. Her mom had freaked. Did that mean these names were not a coincidence? All that was left to understand was the how, and he couldn’t begin to imagine what that might be.

 

 

**_University at Chapel Hill, 1819_ **

 

“Will ye look at this? It’s a fancy little village in the middle of nowhere, isn’t it?” Germain clicked his tongue and his horse sped up as they moved through the quiet village just north of the university buildings.

They rode past the stables at the edge of the university grounds, Jem nodding at the stable master who spat tobacco out the side of his mouth in the midst of returning the nod. The university was not at all what Jem had expected. He’d imagined something more prestigious and urban, not this smattering of buildings rising from the hillside with only a hint of a village beyond. A path had been cut through the trees to make way for the buildings, functional brick with walking paths criss-crossing between them. Young men with smart waistcoats strolled past, casting only cursory glances their way. Jem felt disheveled and wondered if the students assumed them to be vagabonds. He wouldn’t blame them.

Jem signaled Germain to stop and hopped down from the horse, brushing dust from his breeks and straightening his collar. He briefly considered spitting in his hand to clean the grime from his face but imagined he might only manage to create streaks of mud.

“Excuse me!” He waved down a young man who was weaving precariously across the green while attempting to read a small book.

The man didn’t answer, but squinted, waiting for Jem to explain the interruption.

“Pardon, I’m looking for a Professor Olmsted. Would ye point me in his direction?”

The student smirked. “Which one?”

Jem started, surprised at the question. He was just about to ask for “Denis” when Germain burst out laughing.

“Cousin! Do you not feel it when your leg is being pulled?” Germain snorted and slapped the student on the shoulder playfully.

“Sorry,” the student shrugged, smiling. “There are not many professors here. Certainly, I know the man you’re looking for.” He rubbed his shoulder when Germain had slapped him, evidently a bit more boisterously than he was used to. “He’s likely to be found in his office on the second floor of Old East.”

He pointed to the building just past the well in the center of the green and Jem nodded in thanks. Retrieving the box of letters and small items he’d collected, he began leading the horse to the post along the edge of the building, but Germain stopped him, grabbing the reins.

“I’ve got it, Jem. I’ll meet up with you later. Go find your professor.” Germain winked at him and turned, taking long strides as he stretched his legs, sore from the long ride.

 

**_University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, 2021_ **

 

Elizabeth jogged up the grand stone steps of the library, her fingers brushing the column where she’s stood the first time meeting Luke. Her heart began to race as she neared the doors. Every moment since hanging up with Luke felt more fragile, the shape of her world bulging and stretching with the force of some unknown variable.

There were key moments with Luke, since she’d first met him, that felt like stars anchoring the points of a constellation, the truth of them together a fixture in the night sky. The fear that washed over her now was acute, squeezing her heart. Love, as she had come to know it, was ethereal, some invisible force countering gravity. But the mystery of her mother’s history had begun to hang heavily over her and Luke, its weight pulling them back to earth.

She loved her mother, fiercely. The thought that lies had laid the foundation of their relationship made her quiver with anxiety, teetering on fury. What could he have found to merit this reaction in him? In her parents?

Luke stood at the end of a hall, hands pressed deeply into the front pockets of his jeans, nervously waiting. She hugged him tightly and instantly felt a calm pass between them. Whatever this was, wherever it led them, they were solid, alive and yearning for the unwritten life before them.

The room was warm. He’d been cooped up in it for hours until the afternoon sun cast its glow through the shades, bathing them in amber light.

“These look old.” A question more than a statement, she waited for him to explain.

He nodded solemnly. “Start in the upper left.”

Elizabeth made it only a few words in before she looked back at Luke, annoyed. “What is this?”

“Please, just keep reading.”

With an exasperated sigh, she continued, eventually settling into a chair, leaning carefully over the table. The tension moved from her face to her shoulders, then her back, and eventually her foot bounced anxiously on the floor.

She stopped again, after a few more pages, her head shaking slowly as she bit her lip. “How do you know these are real? That they’re really from the dates on them?”

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, nodding thoughtfully. “I’m not saying it’s impossible they’re faked, but I’ve spent the last two years looking at documents from this time and these seem authentic to me.”

“Okay. Okay.” Elizabeth stood and walked around the table, never looking up from the letters. “Okay, so you’re saying what? That this is my fucking mom? This Mandy in the letters?”

Luke breathed into his hands and raised his brows at her.

“Jesus, Luke.” A twisted smile pulled at her lips, the look of someone reconsidering their own sanity. “Babe...I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud.” She put her hands over her eyes, unable to look at him. “Is my mom...a vampire?”

She could hear him shaking, gasping laughs that sounded slightly unhinged. When she pulled the hands from her face, he was doubled over trying to catch his breath.

“Oh my god, don’t you dare laugh at me right now,” she pleaded with him, a hint of a smile on her face.

He took her hands in his and held them against his chest, leaning into her. “I promise you, I’m not laughing at you. I just don’t know how to process any of this right now. I feel fairly certain your mom isn’t a vampire. You’d probably notice that, right? Have you ever seen her cook with garlic?”  


“Shut up.”  

“You’re right. Vampires are unpleasant. Faeries, though...”

That earned him a pinch in his side.

“Ow!”

She kissed him lightly and returned to the table, picking up where she’d left off, reading bits out loud that struck her as particularly telling. She couldn’t help herself. She was imagining her mother as the recipient of these and it felt as true as anything she could fathom.

There were many letters from Jem, but a few others signed by _this_ Mandy’s mother and father. The events they described overlapped some of Jem’s. There were descriptions of deaths and births, of marriages and illnesses, of gatherings and celebrations, of accidents and tragedies. She found her throat choked with tears as she read the letter from the father describing the death of the grandfather, and tears again as the mother spoke of her yearning to see the daughter again someday.

Luke pulled up a chair next to Elizabeth and reached for one of the letters from the mother. “Listen to this part.”

“I’ve asked myself why you left so many times. If I had done something to push you away or even encouraged it without knowing. I wanted someone to blame and tried it out on everyone. Your father bore the brunt of it, as he usually does, but it was only when I turned the blame on myself that he put a stop to it. I think he could see you in me then. And my own mother. How we’d all chosen to leave despite the great risks. We left loved ones, tore pieces of our hearts out to do what we felt we must. And you have done the same. My mother left knowing she’d not see me again and I encouraged her, knowing she needed to find the heart she’d left behind. I was prepared to never see her again. And I know you left with that awful truth as well. It did not ease the hurt to know this, but revealed to me what a strong, courageous woman you’d become and that gave me some solace. And hope for you. Amanda Claire Hope MacKenzie. It’s right there in your name.”

He set the letter down and tapped his finger on the edge of the table, thinking. “Something about this wording is strange, isn’t it? She talks about leaving like it’s going to another planet. Overseas travel wasn’t a picnic, but it wasn’t unheard of. Why would she assume she’d never see her mother again? Never see her daughter again? And she did obviously see her mother again, by traveling to her, so why does she talk about it like it’s almost impossible?”

Elizabeth put her hand on his thigh, taking comfort in the warmth of the touch. “The words are so personal, so emotional, and open-ended, like she doesn’t expect a letter back, right? She doesn’t expect answers to her questions. So why write at all? This makes less sense the more I think about it.”

Her phone dinged with her mother’s text. “They’re here.”

 

**_New Bern, 1797_ **

 

Their final day at William’s was full of procuring provisions for the trip home, her father re-shoeing the horses and repairing a splintered section of the wagon. Her mother fashioned a spring to pull the the kitchen storm door closed without needing to have a set of hands free.

Mandy spent her day watching them.

She’d woken with an anxious fluttering in her stomach, palms sweating and heart thumping. Whatever vague thoughts of what her heart might be telling her had coalesced into a resounding chorus. _It is time._

Mandy walked through the house taking in every tiny detail, cataloguing them in her mind. The smell of the hearth, ash and iron and stone. The imperfections in the glass windows casting wavy streaks of light on the rugs. The bits of candle wax stuck to the wooden floors. The more details she observed, the more she felt at ease, her mind coming to terms with the finality of her decision before the rest of her knew what to make of it.

She breathed in the leather and tang of sweat on her father’s neck as she hugged him after dinner, surprising him for a moment.

“Ye used to cling to my neck like a wee monkey when ye were little,” he’d said. _Remember me that way, Da._

She ambushed Marjorie with a pillow to the face as her sister entered the bedroom looking for a shawl and they both fell onto the bed in a fit of giggles. She tickled her and squeezed her waist, wondering if the feel of her would stay with her.

Her mother got to her first. Brianna had been looking at her with concern ever since the incident with Finley, and pulled her into a hug with little warning in the hall, a beam of light cutting them in half. Her mother’s hugs were fierce, bordering on crushing. They left her breathless and infused with warmth. “I’ll be fine,” Mandy said, willing herself to believe it.

“I know you will,” her mother answered with certainty.

Inside her was a war. _I must do this. I can’t do this._

In the end, it was Jem. She closed her eyes and saw him nodding to her and she felt him in that moment, full of nervous energy and pride.

Mandy sat in the fading light of the bedroom, her fingers stitching items into the lining of her skirt as if guided by an unseen force. Before leaving she tucked a letter under the edge of a table clock in the sitting room. The storm door swung closed behind her, muffled by the piece of felt her mother had nailed to the jamb. Mandy walked to William’s warehouse on swift and silent feet, pulling her cloak over her head to hide her face. She followed Mr. Barnes onto his boat and while he was turned, crouched behind crates he was transporting back to the island with him. When she felt the boat push away from the dock, a piece of her soul detached and remained behind, anchored to the earth where her kin would stay until their deaths.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mandy gets a chance to read the letters and must face the truth she's kept from her daughter. In 1797, Mandy makes her way to the stones. The veil of time grows paper thin for Jem and Mandy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter of this story and I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has read and left kudos and comments. The comments, in particular, have been so wonderful and I am so grateful when readers take the time to share their thoughts with me. It has been such a pleasure to share this story with you all.

**_University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, 2021_ **

 

Elizabeth watched in the hall for her parents, her hands nervously twisting the strings of her hoodie. A shadow preceded a figure walking towards her from the main entry, her father appearing seconds later.

“Hey, darling.” He pulled her into a quick embrace, and she felt his chest expand as he took a steadying breath.

“Where’s mom?” Elizabeth asked, still looking down the hall behind her father.

“She’s waiting outside. She’s a bit nervous about this and wanted me to take a look to see what you’ve got.”

His voice was calm and reassuring, but she could see his own nerves manifest in the way he chewed his lip and cleared his throat, his body rebelling against an unnatural rift in the flow of his life. He walked into the room and zeroed in on Luke, whom he’d yet to meet. They exchanged firm handshakes and awkward greetings before Luke launched into an introduction to what he’d found.

John’s head bobbed in acknowledgement of Luke’s words, but Elizabeth could see he was only hearing bits and pieces, desperate to see what the letters said. Luke finished and gestured for John to take a seat. Her father shook his head, but leaned over the table, palms pressed against the edge as his eyes began scanning the words. He only read a small amount before skipping to the next letter, his breath coming quicker. Looking up, he turned to his daughter. “Go get your mother.”

“I’m here.”

Mandy stood in the doorway, her body turned in on itself, protection from the unknown before her. She looked at John and their eyes spoke something between them. With an almost imperceptible dip of his head, she moved slowly to the table and sat in the empty chair. He handed her the first letter and she took it with shaking fingers.

John pushed a chair next to his wife and took her hand, pressing it between his palms. Elizabeth moved to Luke’s side and took his hand as well, everyone anchoring themselves for the surge of the unknown tide. No one spoke, breaths released with trepidation. Mandy read them, one after another, her hands moving to her face in awe, in pain, in fear. Joy flashed across her tear-filled eyes. Hurt rippled through her jaw. Sorrow held her fast to her chair.

When finally she rose, she walked straight to Luke and wrapped her arms around his shocked frame.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Mom, what is this about?” Elizabeth squared herself after her mother let go of Luke.

Mandy hadn’t looked at her daughter, feeling herself on the edge of composure. When she met Elizabeth’s fierce gaze, she steadied her voice and said, “It is about me. My family. Our family.”

Elizabeth’s brow furrowed at her mother’s words. “Did you use your ancestors’ names to make up who your family is? You’re estranged and you don’t want us to find who they really are, is that it? Because nothing about this makes any sense!” She hadn’t meant for her voice to rise as it had, but she felt an anger surging in her at the realization that her mother had not been truthful. Whatever that truth might be, she deserved to know.

Mandy’s head shook, but no words formed. Her mouth opening, then closing, as if the thoughts refused to be translated. “I didn’t lie to you.” The words sounded weak, the weight of the mystery crushing them.

“Great.” Elizabeth ignored Luke’s warning look, fully aware she was entering the space between mothers and daughters where things often turned ugly. “Please explain the names. Your family always uses the same names, I guess? Somehow, through generations, you all have the same names? Marry people with the same names? How does that work?!”

John stood abruptly and moved to his wife’s side, staring down Elizabeth with a stern, paternal look. His daughter, however, was no longer a child and did not respond as he might have hoped, crossing her arms in defiance.

“I don’t have an answer to satisfy you, Elizabeth. Nothing I can say will make sense and you wouldn’t believe me in any case,” Mandy said, her body deflating under the strain.

Elizabeth pulled herself back, seeing how her mother’s strength had begun to wane, how the joy that had lit up her eyes just minutes earlier as she read the letters was now replaced with darkness and defeat. She stepped closer to her mother and relaxed her stance. “Try me.”

Mandy turned to John, searching for what to do, where to begin.

“Tell them. They’re listening,” he encouraged her gently. They would listen and let Mandy’s story be told. He would make sure of it.

Mandy rubbed her eyes, blinking away tears and frustration and a million other emotions that stirred inside her. Terror lingered there, just below relief. “These letters are from my brother and my parents. They wrote them…” Her voice wavered and she swallowed. “They wrote them just over two hundred years ago.”

She looked up at their faces, contorted in skepticism and confusion. “My grandmother was born in the twentieth century, as was my mother. But I was not. I was born in 1776. This happened because my grandmother and mother and father had the ability to travel through time by touching certain stones. And they went two-hundred years into the past. God, I know this sounds insane. I do know it. But it’s true. So, when I was twenty-one, I left the eighteenth century by going through the stones. And that’s why I’m here now. But the rest of my family is still here, then.” The words came out in a rush, an exhale of truth, followed by the stunned silence of belief and disbelief warring within.

“You don’t have to believe me. You shouldn’t believe me. It’s madness. I absolutely understand that. This truth is my burden. Not yours.” With those words, she turned away before her daughter could form a response and walked out of the room, the sound of her footsteps quickly receding down the hall.

“Mom!” Elizabeth yelled, angling past her father to go after her mother. His arm shot out and pulled her back, gripping her sleeve tightly between his fingers.

“No! Let her go. She needs to be alone right now, not interrogated.” John warned his daughter, the tension in his voice vibrating. Slowly, he loosened his grip as he realized Luke was strung as tightly as a bow, looking quite ready to lay him low.

Elizabeth wrenched her arm free from her father and stared at him wide-eyed. “You believe this?”

“Believe it?” Her father’s face rippled with tension. “You want to know what happens when someone touches a stone and travels through time? I can’t tell you how it feels. You’ll have to talk to your mother about that. But I can tell you exactly what happens when they come through on the other side. I can tell you what it’s like to be standing in the middle of a stone circle when a woman, looking nothing at all like someone from your own time, very abruptly appears out of nowhere in front of your eyes. I can tell you what it feels like to hyperventilate out of fear and confusion at what you’ve just witnessed. Belief is not a requirement.”

* * *

 

 

The people criss-crossing the campus paid no mind to the woman drifting by, her eyes unfocused, looking only at a past that lived in tandem with the present. The farther she got from the library, the lighter she felt, her breath no longer burning in her lungs but drawing strength from the cool gusts of autumn. She had no direction, no goal. Instead of turning back at the main road intersecting the green, she stopped, staring across to the well encircled by stone columns.

 

* * *

 

**_Chapel Hill, 1819_ **

 

Jem drew the dorm room door quietly closed. Germain had passed out mid-afternoon, likely due to the luxury of a room with four walls and a wash basin, a delight after days on the road. Jem pulled his canteen from his pack and headed to the well, looking to refill before the call for dinner. He waited for a man filling a jug, leaning against the wooden brace holding open the well cover, listening to the distant slosh of water against stone. The water ran cold and clear over the edge of the canteen, over his fingers, dotting the dust on his boots. Jem took a swig and looked out at a hawk circling a distant field. The hawk dove behind trees and Jem froze, his body suddenly tense. There, somewhere in the space before him, was a shadow. Not something he saw, but rather something he felt. A shape in time itself, the air bending and bowing for something. For her.

The canteen dropped to the grass at his feet and he propelled forward, seeing nothing, but feeling pulled inexorably toward her.

 

* * *

 

**_Ocracoke, 1797_ **

 

“And where is it you mean to be going?” Mr. Barnes was shadowed by the overhang of the rickety shed, the sunlight swallowed by the mainland. He stepped away from the building and frowned at Mandy as she stepped off the boat onto the landing steps. “This is an island, and not a big one at that. You be runnin’ from your family, you’ll find nothing but sand out here.”

Mandy straightened herself, brushing the dust from her skirts, looking him squarely in the eyes and mustering an unwavering voice. “I want to be here.”

He narrowed his eyes at her and opened his mouth to speak. As the words formed on his tongue, his skin went pale, his eyes springing wide open. “You’re traveling.”

She stared back at him, uncertain if it was safe to answer at first, but finally concluding she had little choice. She nodded.

“Stay the night. I’ve a spare bed. If you should change your mind, I can take you back in the morning.”

Mandy nodded, waving away the gnats that had swarmed her warm skin in the cooling evening air. “Thank you.”

Barnes’ house was built up on stilts, near the center of the island. Grey, weather-beaten wood knotted and warped from the constant bombardment of salt, water, and wind. It kept the elements out well enough and she dropped heavily onto the bed in the corner. He started a fire and handed her a small tin cup of moonshine which she sipped to avoid choking on it.

“How did ye ken it?” she asked him, settling under the blanket he’d tossed to her.

The fire spit and crackled, mingling with his contemplative hum. “I’ve met a few over the years. You start to notice a look about them.”

She knew there were others, had heard her parents speak of it, knew they’d written up what they learned of time travel based on others’ findings, but still it shocked her to hear him say it.

“I’m here because of them. Because of the stones,” he spoke quietly into the growing darkness.

“What do you mean?”

He stretched back on his bed a few feet from hers. “I came here with my wife many years ago. I had set up a trading outpost, avoiding the eye of the governor a bit you might say. I didn’t know what the stones were, didn’t know what could happen. Until my wife disappeared one day. She walked into the circle of stones, me not ten paces behind her, and she was gone. I couldn't leave. I need to be here in case she comes back.”

Mandy squeezed the rough blanket between her fingers, stretching her muscles to feel every inch of her body. His story was haunting. The stones would always be the domain of ghosts. “Do you think she knew what would happen?”

He was silent for a minute and she wondered if he’d fallen asleep. “We had a baby who died. She told me she could hear the baby crying by the stones sometimes. I reckon she went looking for her. Maybe she found our babe.”

The story he told twisted in on itself then, for it was not his story to tell, but his wife’s. And she was gone. The mystery would haunt him. His dead child anchoring him to the island as certainly as the loss of his wife. He spoke of hope that she’d return, but it wasn’t that, Mandy realized. It was possession, the perversion of hope. If he waits, he possesses the space and the story. If he remains, it is not over. If he leaves and rejoins the world, then he must let her go and hold only her memory and that of his child.

She felt a terrible pity for him and silently prayed that her family not stay in limbo waiting for her, or worse, come after her.

Amanda woke at dawn, blinding light cutting through a gap in the curtains. On the table she found a bowl of cool porridge and a rough sketch on a tiny scrap of paper. The island, a trail, an X.

On the morning of May 1, 1797, Amanda Hope Claire MacKenzie stepped into the stone circle on Ocracoke and extended her handed until the world collapsed in on itself.

* * *

 

**_Ocracoke, North Carolina, 1999_ **

 

“Jesus. Oh, thank god. Are you okay?”

Mandy woke with a man leaning over her, taking deep gasping breaths, cradling her head on his lap. He wore the strangest shirt she’d ever seen, sleeves cut off at the top of his arms, with bright words circling the middle. _Red Hot Chili Peppers_. She moved her head to nod as best she could and choked back bile rising in her throat.

“You scared the ever-living shit out of me.”

* * *

 

**_Chapel Hill 1819/2021_ **

 

Mandy’s breath caught in her throat as she stopped before The Old Well in the middle of the green. _Jem._ Half her life had passed since Mandy had last sensed her brother’s presence, could feel where he was, standing in his own pocket of time where only the two of them existed. Goosebumps rose on her skin and she spun around, trying to find him, knowing he was there, but seeing no one. There were other people walking, but none were him. She’d have known. Closing her eyes, she slowly began to walk toward where she felt him strongest and stopped when her feet felt the smooth concrete surrounding The Old Well.

“You’re here.” Her lips pulled into a wide smile filled with wonder.

Jem circled back to the well, looking over his shoulder as if she’d appeared in his peripheral vision. She was here. He was certain of it. He slowly turned toward the well and his entire body stilled, as if an invisible hand pressed against his chest. A laugh bubbled up from his throat and he swallowed it before it drew anyone’s attention.

“You’re here.” His hand reached out to nothing and he began to panic. What if she didn’t realize he could feel her and left? He stifled the panic and took a deep breath. She knew. He could feel it. He had always known what she felt. What she knew. Since she was a baby. He closed his eyes and listened to her. “You are happy. God, you’re happy, aren’t you? I can tell, even after all this time.”

She shivered, feeling a burst of elation. “I got your letters. They’re wonderful, Jem. I feel like… I don’t know. I feel like I’ve carried the weight of leaving all these years, all the wondering how much hurt I might have caused. And I’m so sorry for the hurt. It was hard to not be crushed by it. To not run back sometimes. But Jem, I don’t regret it. Do you understand that? You helped me not regret it that day, saying goodbye. You believed in me and that gave me strength.”

Jem shifted his feet, grasping a wood pillar for support. “There is so much I didn’t put in the letters. I didn’t really know how to tell you, but Marjorie knew. She knew about the stones. About the travel. I don’t know when she learned. Maybe overhearing us and piecing it together. She came to me after you left. We said you’d gone to live with family, but she knew it had surprised us all, and that we’d seen it as final. That you were truly gone. She asked me if you’d gone somewhere else, another time. She never pressed it. Never asked for details. And we never spoke of it again.”

Mandy intertwined her fingers, pressing against joints and tendons. Aged skin that had been burned on the edge of kettles hanging over open-fire hearths, and had washed shifts and shirts over rocks in a stream. Skin that had smoothed diaper cream over her daughter’s skin. Skin that had held pencils taking notes in night classes while her baby found ways to thwart her father’s attempts at sleep as they waited for her return. Skin that had pushed away men who still thought they could claim women’s bodies despite the laws insisting otherwise.

“Not one day has gone by where I did not conjure you all in my mind, Jem. Not one day. In the early days, I wished I could forget, but then when I had Elizabeth, all I wanted to do was show her her family. Had I any of Mam’s talent, I might have tried to draw you.” She laughed imagining what her ridiculous attempts might have looked like.

“I want you to know, Mandy, that wherever you are in time, wherever you might go,” Jem held his hand over his heart. “You’re still here. For me, Mam, Da, Marjorie, all the family. You’re still here with us.”

Mandy brushed away a tear tracking down her cheek and her hand settled over the scar on her chest, hidden beneath the buttons of her shirt. “Thank you, Jem. For everything.”

“Mom?” Mandy turned to find John, Elizabeth, and Luke standing a few feet behind her, their eyes all shimmering in the late afternoon sun.

Mandy stepped forward, smiling, and pulled her daughter into her arms. “Oh, baby. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Elizabeth sniffled into her mother’s hair. “Well, Dad told us some. And I don’t know what to make of it. I’m trying, but I don’t really understand it.”

“That’s okay.” She pulled back and smiled at her daughter, profoundly grateful to even be having this moment.

Luke cleared his throat, stepping forward. “Will you tell us about them? About…everything?” he asked, a shy smile on his lips.

“He’s a history nerd so you’ll have to indulge him, Mom.”

A laugh tinged with surprise and wonder and relief bubbled from Mandy’s throat. “Of course. I’ll tell you all about them.”

* * *

The end.

 


End file.
